---
title: Media Library
framework: Media Library
role: collection
role_heading: Framework
platforms: [Mac Catalyst 13.0+, macOS 10.9+]
path: medialibrary
---

# Media Library

Access read-only collections of the user’s multimedia content.

## Overview

Overview The Media Library framework provides a read-only Objective-C data model representing a user’s collections of images, audio, and video. The initial access point of the Media Library framework is MLMediaLibrary, which loads the user’s media into a hierarchical structure consisting of media sources, groups, and objects. At the highest level, all content within a media library instance is categorized by media source. Conceptually, a media source respresents a single app, such as iTunes or Aperture. Each source contains a hierarchy of media groups that originates from a root group. These groups consist of media objects—individual files containing a piece of media such as a photo, song, or movie. Only one copy of each object exists within a media library instance, but an object can be referenced by multiple groups from a single source. The structure of the group hierarchy is specific to each media source.

## Topics

### Classes

- [MLMediaGroup](medialibrary/mlmediagroup.md)
- [MLMediaLibrary](medialibrary/mlmedialibrary.md)
- [MLMediaObject](medialibrary/mlmediaobject.md)
- [MLMediaSource](medialibrary/mlmediasource.md)

### Reference

- [MediaLibrary Constants](medialibrary/medialibrary-constants.md)