Adobe Stock: titles, keywords and CSV

Last verified: September 2026

Adobe Stock takes each photo's title and keywords from the contributor portal or from a CSV. The title describes the photo plainly; keywords go in order of importance, because the first ones weigh most in search. This guide collects the rules from Adobe's own pages, including where they disagree, and walks through one real photo from title to CSV row.

At a glance

What	Adobe Stock's rule
Title	A plain description; Adobe's tips suggest 70 characters or fewer, the official CSV sample allows up to 200
Keywords	Up to 49, most important first; the first ten weigh most
Language	The language set in your contributor account, for title and keywords alike
Brand names	Not in commercial titles or keywords
CSV header	Exactly `Filename,Title,Keywords,Category,Releases`
CSV file	UTF-8, at most 5,000 rows and 1 MB
Category, releases	Optional in the CSV; confirmed in the portal
Editorial	Illustrative editorial only, marked by a checkbox in the portal; the place goes in the keywords
Generative AI	Marked by Adobe's generative-AI checkbox at submission
Video clips	Same title and keyword rules; MOV or MP4, 5 to 60 seconds, no audio; no editorial video

Title

Adobe's title and keyword tips suggest a simple description of the file, ideally under 70 characters.
Adobe's documents disagree on the hard limit: the official CSV sample file allows titles up to 200 characters, while the CSV help page says 70 and asks for plain text without commas. In a test upload in September 2026, Adobe accepted longer titles with commas. The safe habit: put the words that matter in the first 70 characters.
Write the title in the language set in your contributor account.
For commercial content, leave out brand and product names.

A title that works names who or what is in the photo, what is happening and where: Smiling Woman Working at Desk in Modern Office (46 characters). It reads as a phrase a buyer might type, not as a list of words.

Keywords

Add up to 49 keywords. The tips pages say 49 and the CSV requirements say 50, so 49 satisfies both.
Order matters. Put the most important words first: the first ten keywords weigh most in Adobe's search.
Describe what is in the photo (subject, action, setting, mood or concept). Words that have nothing to do with the photo count as keyword spam.
Use the same language as the title.

Putting them in order

Adobe only asks for the most important words first. One way to do that: the main subject, what is happening and where, then the objects that define the scene, and last the broader concepts the photo can illustrate. For the office photo below, the first ten keywords AiMedia wrote are:

woman, office, working, smiling, desk, laptop, document, professional, business, modern

The subject (woman), where she is (office), what she is doing (working, smiling), and the objects that define the scene come before broader ideas such as career, productivity or planning, which sit later in the list.

One photo, from title to CSV row

Smiling Woman Working at Desk in Modern Office — A photo from AiMedia's demo. The title and keywords below are AiMedia's output for it, unedited.

This is the row AiMedia's Adobe Stock CSV gives for this photo:

Filename,Title,Keywords,Category,Releases
DSC07141.jpg,Smiling Woman Working at Desk in Modern Office,"woman, office, working, smiling, desk, laptop, document, professional, business, modern, interior, city view, window, daytime, bright, reflection, female, employee, career, productivity, workspace, furniture, technology, carafe, pen holder, writing utensils, papers, thoughtful, concentration, success, planning",,

Filename is the name of the file as you uploaded it, extension included.
The keywords sit in one cell, separated by commas, in order of importance. This photo has 31; the limit is 49.
Category and Releases are empty. Adobe proposes a category when the files arrive, and you confirm it in the portal.

Uploading a CSV

A CSV attaches titles and keywords to many files in one step.

Column	What goes in it
`Filename`	The file name exactly as uploaded, with its extension
`Title`	The title
`Keywords`	Keywords separated by commas, in one cell
`Category`	Optional; the number of an Adobe category (Adobe suggests one at upload)
`Releases`	Optional; the names of releases you already uploaded to Adobe

Upload the photos to the Adobe Stock contributor portal first.
Upload the CSV in the portal. Each row is matched to a file by its Filename.
Check the files in the portal: titles and keywords should now be filled in. Confirm the category, attach releases if needed, and submit.

Keep the header row exactly Filename,Title,Keywords,Category,Releases. Do not rename or translate the columns.
Save the file as UTF-8. One file holds at most 5,000 rows and 1 MB.
Adobe's CSV help asks for file names of at most 30 characters.

Categories and releases

You can leave Category and Releases empty. Adobe proposes a category when the files arrive; you confirm it, and attach releases, in the contributor portal.

Editorial

Adobe accepts illustrative editorial content only. Tick "This is illustrative editorial content" for each submission in the portal; there is no CSV column for it.

Adobe's current page for illustrative editorial asks the title to "describe what's happening in the photo in a few words". The title rules above still apply: keep it short, and leave the date and place out. The place goes into the keywords: Adobe's tips give "London, England or London, Ontario" as location keywords, and ask you to add the country whenever you name a city, state or province. Adobe's 2024 page asked for the date and location in the title; its current pages no longer do.

AiMedia's Adobe Stock CSV follows these rules: an editorial photo keeps the title you see in AiMedia, with no date or place added, and the city and country you set for it are added to its keywords.

Regular stock titles must not be written as news captions.

Video clips

Adobe Stock takes clips with the same title and keyword rules as photos: a short, plain title and up to 49 keywords, most important first. A camera angle such as aerial view is a keyword like any other.

Vertical clips. Adobe asks for the words "vertical" and "video" in the title and the keywords. AiMedia adds vertical video to vertical clips on its own.
CSV. The same file and columns cover clips; Adobe's own sample CSV has a row for a .mov file. AiMedia writes each clip's original file name, with its extension.
Files. MOV or MP4 (MPG too), 5 to 60 seconds, up to 3.9 GB. Adobe does not accept video with audio: remove the sound before uploading. M4V is not on Adobe's list: re-save such a clip as MP4 first.
No editorial video. Adobe does not accept editorial clips. Send clips from an editorial batch to Shutterstock or Pond5.
Generative AI. Mark AI-generated video with Adobe's generative-AI checkbox, as for images.

Common mistakes

A title written as a keyword list. Adobe lists inappropriate or irrelevant keywords or titles among its common refusal reasons. Write the title as a plain description.
Keywords that are not in the photo. Every keyword should name something the photo shows or clearly expresses; unrelated words count as keyword spam.
The best keywords buried at the end. The first ten weigh most, so the subject and the action belong there.
Brand and product names in a commercial title or keywords. Describe the object instead: "smartphone", not the maker's name.
The same title and keywords on a whole series. Adobe notes that reusing identical metadata for similar photos can lead to refusals. Give each photo the words that describe it.
A changed CSV header. Adobe asks for the header exactly as in its sample: do not rename or translate the columns.
A file name that does not match. The name in the CSV must be the uploaded file's name, with the same extension.
Texts in another language than the one set in your account.
Generative-AI content not marked with Adobe's checkbox at submission.