Summary

We would like to request the ability to exclude specific folders and their contents from appearing in search results within Optimizely Digital Asset Management (DAM).

Current Limitation

As confirmed by Optimizely Support, folder permissions can be used to restrict access to assets, but there is currently no way to hide folders or assets from search results for users who already have access to those folders. This means that assets can still be discovered through search even when they are intended to be hidden from regular use.

Business Need

Organizations often need to retain assets in DAM while preventing them from being easily discoverable or selected by users. The current permission-based approach does not fully address this need because users with folder access can still find these assets through search.

Key Use Cases
-Hide assets that are intended only for a limited audience while keeping standard DAM permissions unchanged.
-Prevent deprecated, obsolete, or soon-to-be-retired assets from appearing in search results before deletion.
-Create archive or quarantine folders where assets remain stored but are excluded from day-to-day search experiences.
-Reduce the risk of users unintentionally selecting outdated, incorrect, or restricted images.
-Improve search relevance by surfacing only approved and actively maintained assets.

Proposed Solution

Introduce a configurable folder-level setting such as:

"Exclude folder contents from DAM search results"

When enabled:

Assets within the folder would not appear in search results.
Users with direct folder access could still browse to and view the assets.
Folder permissions would continue to control access rights.
The setting could optionally be inherited by subfolders.

Expected Benefits
-Improved governance and content lifecycle management.
-Reduced risk of accidental usage of retired or restricted assets.
-Higher search quality and user experience.
-Better support for enterprise DAM administration and compliance processes.
Priority

This functionality would provide significant value for organizations managing large asset libraries with varying lifecycle states, approval statuses, and audience restrictions.

Reference: Optimizely Support has confirmed that no such capability currently exists and indicated that this would need to be considered as a product enhancement request.