Organize Projects with Collections

Overview

Working on a client proposal, marketing campaign or destination project? Collections let you organize related assets in one place so they're easy to find and reuse later. You can also share a Collection with colleagues so they can access the same set of assets. Unlike My Selections, Collections are designed for ongoing projects and stay available until you choose to delete them.

What is a Collection?
When should I use one?
Create a Collection
Add assets
Share a Collection with colleagues
Manage a Collection
Delete a Collection

What is a Collection?

A Collection is a saved group of assets organized around a specific purpose, such as a destination, itinerary, client proposal or marketing campaign. Collections don't move or duplicate the original assets — they reference assets already stored in the Media Library, so the originals always remain in their existing albums. A single Collection can include assets from multiple albums and destinations.

When should I use a Collection?

Use a Collection when you want to keep assets organized beyond your current browsing session — for example, to prepare a client proposal, organize assets for a destination, build a marketing campaign, gather photos for a presentation, or save assets you'll reuse. If you only need a temporary shortlist while browsing, use My Selections instead.

Create a Collection

Open My Collections.
Click Create Collection.
Enter a descriptive name.
Click Create.

Choose a name that clearly describes the project or destination, so it's easy to recognize later — for example, "Vietnam Luxury Brochure 2026," "Cambodia Honeymoon Proposal," or "Thailand Social Campaign Q1." As a rule of thumb, create one Collection per client, destination, product or campaign, rather than mixing several projects in one folder. [Insert screenshot: Create Collection dialog]

Add assets to a Collection

Select one or more assets.
Click Add to Collection.
Select an existing Collection or create a new one.

The original assets remain in the Media Library and appear in your Collection. [Insert screenshot: Add to Collection]

Share a Collection with colleagues

Collections make it easy to work together on shared projects.

Open the Collection you want to share and click Edit.
Under Share with, enter the email address of the colleague you want to add.
Optionally set an Expiration Date (default is Never) and add a Message for context.
Click Save.

The colleague now has access to the Collection, and their email appears under Shared With when you view your Collections list. A Collection's Type changes from Personal to Shared once at least one person has been added. Removing someone from Share with revokes their access. Note: Collections don't currently support separate Viewer/Editor permission levels — anyone you share a Collection with has the same level of access to it. If you need to share assets externally with a client or partner who doesn't have a Canto account, use a Share Link instead (see Share Images with Share Links). [Insert screenshot: Collection Edit / Share with panel]

Manage a Collection

Keep your Collection organized as your project evolves — rename it, add new assets, or remove ones you no longer need. Removing an asset from a Collection does not remove it from the Media Library. [Insert screenshot: Managing a Collection]

Delete a Collection

When a project is complete, you can delete the Collection. This only removes the Collection itself — all original assets remain safely stored in the Media Library. [Insert screenshot: Delete Collection]

Best practices

Name Collections by client, destination, or campaign so they're instantly recognizable.
Keep one Collection per project rather than combining several — it's easier to share and hand off.
Review and clean up Collections once a project wraps, so your workspace stays usable.

Marketing Tip: Use Collections as reusable project folders — a "Vietnam Hero Images" Collection you can pull from every time you refresh a campaign, instead of re-searching from scratch.