Pick files from your library

Last updated: October 12, 2026

Every tool, workflow and brief that asks for a file opens the same picker on your asset library, starting with what you used lately.

Steps

  1. Start where you need the file. On Home, for example, the agent's composer takes files for a brief.

  2. Ask for a file: here, click + (Add to prompt) and choose Attach files or photos. In a tool or a workflow, click the empty file slot. The Select assets picker opens on the files you used in the past 90 days, the one you used last first.

  3. To see the whole library, open Used within (it reads Past 90 days) and choose Show all.

  4. Narrow it down with the same rail as the Asset Library: tick a Type, choose Generated or Uploaded, pick a label, or type part of a name in Search items....

  5. Click the file you want (hold ⌘, or Ctrl on Windows, and click to add more), then click Select. The button counts your picks, for example Select 2 assets.

Result

The picker closes and the file lands where you asked for it: on the brief, in the tool's slot or on the workflow's input. Nothing is copied: the slot points at the file in your library. Once you send the brief or run the tool, the file counts as used and moves to the front of your recently used files.

Where the picker opens

The same picker answers every place in Layer that takes a file from your library: a tool's file slots (the image to edit, a reference, a source video), a workflow's file inputs, a brief for the agent, the images of a reference set, the video timeline and the font picker. It shows only the kinds of file that place accepts, so a slot that takes images never offers you audio.

Production tips

  • Bring in a file without leaving. The bar under the grid has Upload, Paste, Record audio, Record video and Import from URL, and you can drop files onto the picker. New files go into your library and are picked for you once they finish.
  • Inside a project. Opened while a project is active, the picker shows only that project's files. Turn off Only in project name in the rail to pick from the whole workspace.
  • Your filters stay put. The picker remembers the filters you set until you reload the page, in every picker you open, so a run of edits on the same character keeps its search.
  • Saved views work here too. A view you saved in the Asset Library sits at the top of the picker's rail. See Save a library view.
  • Pick a set in one go. ⌘-click (Ctrl-click on Windows) every file a slot should take, then click Select once.

If something goes wrong

  • The file you want is not in the picker. The picker starts on the files you used in the past 90 days. Set Used within to Show all, and inside a project, turn off Only in project name.
  • A kind of file never shows. The place you opened the picker from does not accept it, for example audio in an image slot. Check what the tool takes, or convert the file first.
  • Select stays greyed out. Nothing is picked, or you picked more than the slot takes: the count beside the buttons turns red and shows the limit, for example (max 4). ⌘-click (Ctrl-click) a picked file to drop it.

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