If you’ve ever worked with real clients and real Umbraco media libraries, you’ll know this feeling: that quiet sinking moment when a file gets updated, or renamed, or moved - and suddenly links start breaking in places you’d forgotten even existed.
Friendly Media started life as my attempt to solve exactly that problem.
It wasn’t supposed to be a product (at least not at first). It was just something a client urgently needed… and something I came to realise that other teams might need too.
Where it all began
A client came to me with a simple-sounding request:
“We need friendlier links for our downloads - no random folder names, no changing URLs, and absolutely no broken links. We also need to use these links on a third-party platform, so stability is everything.”
If you've ever dealt with externally-linked media that gets updated a lot, you’ll know the problem immediately:
- Every time the file changes, Umbraco regenerates the URL.
- Every file name change means your link changes.
- And every link change means you’d better remember to create a redirect.
- And after the third or fourth iteration… your redirect chain is getting ever more difficult to keep track of.
In the majority of cases within the CMS this is dealt with seamlessly by Umbraco, but for external links it's a bit more of a problem.
Redirects work, of course - but they’re time-consuming, fragile, and surprisingly easy to get wrong. Personally I think, with the benefit of experience, that it isn't a great idea to ask content editors (who may not be expert users) to manage their own redirects. I've spent my fair share of time in the past fixing circular redirects!
On top of that my client was absolutely not keen on the random folder names generated by Umbraco and included in media links.
I thought there had to be a better way.
The core idea: a link that doesn’t change unless you tell it to
That was the spark.
Friendly Media generates its own stable, SEO-friendly URLs that never include random folder names - and more importantly:
The link stays the same, even when you replace the file behind it. No redirect chains. No broken references. No maintenance overhead.
If you really do want to regenerate the link when the file name changes, you can - but it’s your choice, not something that happens behind your back.
And for those special cases where teams need total control, Friendly Media also supports custom URLs.
Then the real-world needs started adding up...
Once I’d solved the link stability problem for that client, I started seeing other media-related pain points everywhere.
You’ve probably hit some of these yourself:
- Trying to find a file in a huge media library with inconsistent naming
- Needing to quickly identify unused media when cleaning up a site
- Wondering which files are safe to delete
- Figuring out whether a media item is referenced across content
- Looking for duplicates or missing files
- Trying to recover something a user “accidentally” deleted
Friendly Media gradually grew features to tackle these in a clean, editor-friendly way.
Now, of course, Umbraco also has some features which help here but I found that they didn't always fit my use-case - for example maybe I would have needed to check each media item individually when I actually wanted to see an overview by applying a simple filter.
Smarter searching and filtering
Finding media shouldn’t feel like detective work. Friendly Media makes it easy to:
- Search by keyword
- Search by file type
- Sort media alphabetically (ascending or descending)
- Filter by warnings (missing file, duplicate URL, unused media, filename changed etc)
It sounds simple, but the impact on day-to-day workflow is huge.
Warnings for missing files and duplicate links
Because broken or duplicated URLs are exactly the kind of thing that gets noticed at the worst possible time.
Unused media detection
A lifesaver for clean-up projects - especially on content-heavy sites.
Delete Guard
This one has already saved several clients from disaster.
If a media item is used anywhere on the site, Friendly Media can block the deletion and show you where it’s referenced. It’s gentle, protective, and incredibly reassuring for editors.
I'm aware that Umbraco does have its own setting to prevent media deletion, but it applies to both content and media which is not always what's required.
Recover media from the recycle bin - safely
If media items used in content have already been accidentally deleted, Friendly Media can find and restore them from the recycle bin for you. This is especially helpful if Delete Guard wasn’t enabled yet.
When a tool solves more than one problem… it becomes a product
Friendly Media started as a one-off solution to a very specific client issue. But as soon as I saw it solving similar problems for other clients - different sectors, different content teams, different workflows - it became clear that this needed to be something more than a private utility.
So Friendly Media became a fully supported RivloTools product, with improvements shaped by real teams using it on real websites every day.
It’s one of those tools that saves time quietly, consistently, and without drama. And if you work with large media libraries or fast-changing content teams that adds up fast.
Friendly Media is fully released for Umbraco 13 and already in use on client sites.
You can read more about it on the product page — or drop me a message if you want to see how it could fit into your workflow.