A descriptor is the per-image label that distinguishes one image from another inside the same group. For a group of shoe photos, descriptors might be front, back, sole, detail. For a wedding shoot, they might be prep, ceremony, reception.

Descriptor is just one of many metadata keys. It happens to be the one most filename formats reference for "what makes this image different from its neighbours," so it gets first-class chip presence in the Format Builder and a column in the workspace table.

Anatomy of a filename

Most filename formats reference {descriptor} alongside {sku} (or {group}) and optional positional tokens. A typical render looks like:

{sku}-{descriptor}-{position}{ext}
  ↓       ↓          ↓        ↓
nike-001-front-1.jpg

If the descriptor is empty and the active format references {descriptor}, the renderer short-circuits to '' for that image — it is treated as "not yet nameable" and skipped in the export. This prevents exporting filenames like nike-001--1.jpg with a stray hyphen.

Empty descriptors are intentional.

If you don't want descriptors in your filenames, edit your active format in the Format Builder (or your saved template) so it doesn't reference {descriptor}. See the Token reference.

Sanitization

Descriptors go through the same write-time normalizer as every other free-text metadata key:

Lowercased.
Spaces and underscores become hyphens.
Non-alphanumeric characters stripped.
Consecutive hyphens collapsed.

Typing Side View, Detail yields the descriptor side-view-detail.

Entering descriptors

Inline: click any row to open its metadata panel and type into the descriptor field.
Bulk: multi-select rows and use Set Metadata → descriptor in the selection toolbar.
Group default: type into the group header's descriptor input. The value cascades to every member of the group; per-row values override the cascade.
CSV Import: map your CSV's descriptor column on the import wizard's mapping step and every matched row gets its descriptor written in one batch.

When a template constrains the descriptor

Templates can list descriptor in their Required Metadata with an allowed-value array — e.g. descriptor: ['front', 'back', 'side', 'detail']. When such a template is active, the descriptor field in the row metadata panel surfaces those values as a dropdown picker instead of a free-text input. The same affordance applies to any other metadata key the template constrains, not just descriptor.

See Creating a template for how to author one.