[RELEASED] Asset Inventory - Search Inside Your Assets

Asset Store | Documentation | Discord​

Your asset companion: a lightning-fast search for assets OUTSIDE your current project. Find content in assets you purchased or downloaded WITHOUT IMPORTING and bring them in with a single click.

Eliminate the time-consuming task of finding a sound file, a texture or a model you know you purchased but which is hidden inside one of your many Asset Store purchases. The Asset Inventory provides a complete list of all assets you own, including their content.

Features

• One-click solution, no setup required
• Browse asset contents without importing
• No full asset import required just to use a few files from another package
• Massive time-saver when dealing with unitypackages
• Filter by asset type (Image, Audio, Prefab...), asset, publisher and category
• Automatically indexes Asset Store downloads
• Add custom locations where you store Unity packages from other sources
• Lightning fast indexing and search
• Import individual files instead of the full package
• Import complex files like materials and prefabs with all dependencies
• Helps reduce your project to just the items you really need
• See additional statistics like size, dimensions of images or length of audio
• Quickly preview audio to find the right sounds instantly
• Easy UI and asset browser

 

While in the review process, if anybody would like to test this asset and give feedback, please contact me in the Discord.

 

And it's live!

 

Preview of upcoming version 1.1

Change Log 1.1.0 (2022-08-08)
- Ability to move cache database to different location, use other existing database or create a new database
- Support global (default) and project-specific configurations
- Support sorting
- Filter by image dimensions or audio length
- Asset grouping by category
- Unify display of path slashes
- Don't immediately search while typing
- Option to reindex individual assets
- Allow direct import of package from asset list
- First preview version of Reporting feature listing all detected assets in a project
- Auto-upgrade database
- Improved asset view, grouping, details pane, UI alignment
- Add more supported file types for type clustering
- Add 2022.1 hint
- Support different Asset Store cache locations through custom folders
- Officially support 2019.4
- Prepare for future bulk import of packages
- Show ratings for assets if available
- Show last updated date of assets
- Disable paging arrows when no further pages are available
- Customizable search view: Tile size, Tile titles, Auto-Ping on select
- Improved search field UX
- More tooltips all-over
- Switch to first result page after different search
- Show version in About
- Extent documentation with installation and configuration guide
- Calculate guessed display catagory during package import if asset store data was not finalized yet
- Fix audio preview not stopping
- Fix incorrect _ escaping in search when other conditions are used as well
- Fix audio preview causing duplicate extraction
- Fix sound files with # or + in their name not being able to be played
- Fix massive performance degradation with many files in the database
- Fix long break between asset imports
- Fix UI becoming very slow if search term was not found

 

Version 1.1 approved by Unity and now live. Enjoy!

 

Hey awesome asset! I'd love to join the Discord, but it tells me "This invite may be expired, or you might not have permission to join."

 

Thanks a lot for reporting this! I changed some settings in the Discord, maybe that invalidated the link. I updated it so now it is: https://discord.gg/uzeHzEMM4B Will take a while until it propagates to all places where the old one still is. See you there!

 

Discord link is now fixed & updated. See you there

 

Release 1.2 is now available. Delete the old version, install the new, enjoy! And if you want to support me, spread the word and add a review.

This is the biggest step towards the initial vision for the tool so far. You can finally add not only Unity packages, but any Unity-supported media file, index your whole audio library, your FBX downloads from other web sites, texture collections etc.

And since that went much faster than expected, I added the second huge feature as well: Tagging. You can now tag packages and filter your search by tags. This was quite a complex undertaking but is now the foundation for many additional features like tagging individual assets in a future release as well.

Change Log

- Media Indexer! Index and search through arbitrary media files, not just those in unity packages, e.g. for instant unified access to a sound library, texture folder, models downloaded from the web
- Tagging! Tag assets, import tags from Asset Store, group assets by tag, create/rename/delete tags, set tag colors, bulk add/remove
- Multi-select in asset tree
- Reporting tab will display identified asset of currently selected item in Project View
- Show asset ratings with stars
- Replace custom folder list UI with standardized reorderable list, with more functionality out of the box and allowing to influence the import order
- Ability to jump from asset view to filtered search view (button & double click)
- Exclude assets from search and indexing
- Exclude files from search by extension
- Show & Consider deprecated assets
- Show asset icons in asset browser
- Allow limiting search to specific file sizes
- Stop all sounds when tool window is closed
- Cleaner UX inside dropdowns on Search tab
- Support Linux
- Create less garbage during UI refresh
- Link to Asset Store from asset details
- Rename Assets to Packages for more clarity
- Make About tab into an Icon to save space
- Exclude more files per default from search results
- Optional grouping of long dropdowns in Search tab
- Big performance improvements when navigating between tabs and switching from and to play mode
- Fix asset metadata sometimes not being displayed
- Fix custom folder enablement state not being saved immediately
- Fix asset tree collapsing and expanding seemingly randomly
- Fix filenames with extension only throwing errors (e.g. .wav)

 

Release 1.3 just got approved by Unity. Delete the old version, install the new, enjoy! And if you want to support me, spread the word and add a review.

Change Log

- Saved Searches! Save and restore any search easily
- Bulk package import! New import wizard allows to easily import multiple packages at once
- Integration with Package2Folder! Allows importing packages into arbitrary sub-folders
- Move all additional filter options into new filter bar for a much cleaner UI
- Allow import from search also if a file inside the target dir is selected and not the directory itself
- Allow deletion of packages from database
- Bulk action to force reindexing multiple packages at once
- Bulk include/exclude of packages
- Bulk deletion of packages
- Search inside packages view
- Use default icons when previews are missing
- Properly support deprecation of assets
- Bring index and Asset Store update buttons into one section
- Use progress bars for better visualization
- Remove package exclusion on-demand
- Speed up package importer dramatically in case of many excluded packages
- Big performance increase when scanning for package updates
- Integrate folder settings into list
- Make gathering extended media attributes optional
- Make copying preview images optional
- Make showing icons instead of empty previews in search optional
- Make indexing package contents optional
- Global settings sections
- Allow to reset additional filters quickly
- Renamed Index to Settings
- Show better hint how to create new tag
- Improved administration of additional folders
- Split package update process into two steps: create packages in database and index content to show asset results faster
- Hide collapse button if no grouping is active
- Handle correctly if asset store purchases could not be retrieved
- Fix "Reindex Asset" deleting the asset loosing all metadata
- Fix accidental spill-over of data between live and deprecated versions of an asset
- Fix 0-byte packages causing import to fail
- Fix corrupted packages causing import to fail

There are two really big features in: Named Searches to quickly pull up search results again and Bulk package import to quickly import all essential packages into a new project. Thanks to the inclusion of the great Package2Folder asset, you can even specify a custom root folder now for imported packages, keeping your Asset root nice and clean.

 

Release 1.4 just got approved by Unity. Delete the old version, install the new, enjoy! And if you want to support me, spread the word and add a review.

Change Log

- Package Support! Use asset packages and registry packages side-by-side completely transparently. Select preferred versions. Import single or in bulk. Automatically adds scoped registries if needed.
- Ability to index packages coming from the Unity or other registries
- Support local tarball packages
- Support embedded packages
- Support git URLs for packages
- Support offline mode in case packages are temporarily not available or Internet is down
- Fail gracefully if packages contain malformed manifests
- New settings to enable/disable content indexing
- New additional filter in search: all packages, asset packages, registry packages, custom packages
- Optionally use package keywords as tags
- Extract author data from packages
- Maintenance filter to show all installed registry packages
- Maintenance view to see packages with custom registries
- Show registry packages also in reporting view
- Show package size in bulk view
- Show minimal Unity version for packages
- Show license of packages
- Allow Open in Search only if there are files indexed
- Add missing preview icons for images
- Show tag creation hint also in tag UI
- Store Guids also for media files if meta files exist
- Restrict media indexer to only create previews for media files (since CS and asmdef would interrupt import process)
- Split local update to store package metadata first and then go into indexing
- New package grouping option: by publisher
- Connect free-floating asset packages to Asset Store
- Allow breaking asset store connection again
- Import also small and icon package image locations into database
- Gracefully handle invalid package manifests by only omitting the incorrect fields
- Maintenance view: see all manually linked packages
- Maintenance view: show disabled by Unity
- Link to changelog in package version selection if a link exists (e.g. all Unity packages)
- Added dedicated filter side-bar in package view
- Show/Hide deprecated packages
- Show outdated assets in Asset Cache
- Support deleting files from cache while deleting package from database
- Regularly refresh Asset details online
- No-Sort option in search to dramatically speed up browsing and searching (Assets are typically sorted by asset path in the DB initially)
- Additional minor performance optimizations when searching
- Show update hint when new version is available
- Component for semantic versioning comparisons
- Add safe-guarding timeout to package metadata resolution
- Make search input delay configurable
- Link to Asset Store page
- Correctly handle outdated packages in Unity Asset Cache: Split into two assets, unlink old one from store
- Add timeout to preview image generation
- Only show asset store link if there is actually still a linked asset
- React gracefully when hard drive is full
- Fix tags not being sorted correctly when mixing upper and lower-case
- Fix initialization not being done in edge cases when tool is docked
- Fix media properties extraction aborting if encountering files with very long paths
- Fix preview generator aborting indexing if files cannot be removed temporarily
- Fix bulk import not continuing when script files are imported
- Fix guid extraction stopping indexing when encountering too long paths

There are multiple exciting new things in this release. The biggest new feature is the support for Registry Packages. These were so far the big missing item after indexing asset packages and custom packages. Now everything shown in the package manager can also be seen in Asset Inventory, including the contents, previews etc. All existing flows like bulk import are supported. Custom scoped registries will automatically be added as well, simplifying this workflow a lot.

The next big area of work was making the tool even more robust, detecting many additional edge cases and handling outdated/renamed assets automatically. And finally many smaller user-requests were implemented as well, like additional grouping options.

Have fun!

 

The 1.4.1 hotfix release was just set live.

Fun fact: Unity Importer seems to ignore folders that are called "AssetStore". But only when downloaded through the Asset Store, not as a custom package.

 

New trailer is live!

 

The new release 1.5 has just been published:

• Allow adding tags to individual files!
• Download assets into cache right without using the package manager!
• Bulk-Download assets
• Support downloading assets from the Import UI
• Optional backup of assets allowing to keep multiple versions (Custom backup folder, SemVer based)
• Filter by package and/or file tags
• Intelligent tile text selection option auto-selecting title on tile size
• Allow grouping packages by state
• Read package metadata directly from asset package files
• Persist downloaded/cached version
• Show more meaningful data earlier in the indexing process
• Show phase information when updating Asset Store details
• Add version column in package list
• Show indicator if there is a newer version of an asset available
• Allow instantly reindexing single package
• Allow triggering package download from search page
• Ability to activate cooldown during indexing for hard disks that more easily overheat
• Trigger import optionally by double-clicking onto search results
• Show advanced features when pressing CTRL key
• CTRL + Local Update will force updating all assets with the local package metadata
• CTRL + Asset Store Update will force updating all asset details of all assets
• CTRL + Import Package will open file location of package
• CTRL + Delete Package will immediately delete the cached package
• CTRL + Delete Packages will remove cached files for all selected packages
• Major performance increase when rescanning media folders
• Seal classes for performance
• Stabilize media indexer in some edge conditions
• Fix assets now correctly removed again after media indexer run
• Fix dependency extraction sometimes failing if GUIDs appear in multiple packages
• Fix packages in package browser not detecting immediately if local cache was deleted
• Fix potentially old preview images shown when clearing or switching database
• Fix package details sometimes being updated again all the time

Although there was a bit of summer vacation inbetween quite a lot has happened in one month.

I'm really proud to have included some major features that were high on my personal wish list: Tags per file, not only per package. Triggering downloads without the need to go to the Package Manager. And finally showing correct version information for downloaded packages, which allows so many additional nice scenarios.

One big one is: automatic backups, making sure you always have one or more asset versions to go back to in case an asset introduces issues. And to have a copy in case assets get deprecated. This feature will be extended in the next versions to allow more fine-granular control. There are also many convenience features added in this release, most of which are either automatic or can be accessed by holding down the CTRL key. This will make additional buttons visible, e.g. in the Package view. In order to upgrade just remove the old and import the new version.

I strongly recommend to update the metadata once so that all versions are correct. You do this by holding down CTRL and then force update both the local index (quick, will not reindex everything) and the Asset Store data in the Settings.

Thanks a lot to you all for your great feedback, suggestions and help. You rock. And as always if you want to support me, please add a review and spread the word

 

Nice tool, but it doesn't seem to track the cache location, if it isn't the standard user/appdata/roaming/unity location. I have a LOT of assets, so I moved my folder to another drive. The temporary workaround was to add the new folder in the Asset Inventory settings.

 

This is correct and you picked the right solution as well (also described in the documentation). Adding it as an additional folder will give you the exact same indexing behavior as the default would do.

The reason this is like this is that I haven't yet found a way to actually retrieve the property inside Unity WHERE the custom cache location actually is. I am still investigating where Unity is storing this property. Once identified this will be automatic!

 

Can I choose which package to index? I seem not to find it. Because I only want to index several resource packages.

 

Yes this is possible. The way to do so is to bulk select all packages in the Package view, Exclude All and then select those which you want to index and remove the Exclusion.

 

fast reply, thanks, ask, do you mean deleting packages? I can't find where to exclude.

I set a custom path to index images, but many images have't preview icon, why

 

See screenshots below to find the spot. It is a checkbox in the package details on the right. Make sure to use the newest version of the asset (1.5 as of now). Exclusion was added after the initial release so it might be you are using an older version (see version info in about section).

 

Thanks, I saw it, you are responsible.

 

Excellent package!
I've recently finished downloading 24.48GB of assets and indexing them, and already found it useful for locating specific sound effects.
I don't know if I missed the option, but it would be great to list all not-yet-downloaded packages. The package manager only allows us to filter for the ones we've downloaded already and doesn't have an 'invert filter' option. In the 'Packages' tab filters I see an option for not-indexed... maybe that will do it?

 

Good idea @pjbaron. I added a "Not Downloaded" maintenance view in the upcoming version (most likely next week).

 

Amazing! Thank you

 

Sneek peek of an upcoming expert search feature for those who want even more search power. Use the full capabilities of SQLite.

 

Asset Inventory is such a fantastic tool! It really helps me browse and search through the many Unity asset packages in my collection. Thanks for developing and maintaining this!

I found a bug, tested on Asset Inventory v1.5.0, Unity 2022.1.20f1.
If I open the Asset Inventory window and then enter Play Mode, Unity would crash. (!)

The bug was caused by line 704 at IndexUI.cs:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. (...)
3.  
4. // result
5. GUILayout.BeginVertical();
6. if (_contents.Length > 0) // <------ Line 704
7. {
8.     if (_files == null) PerformSearch(); // happens during recompilation
9.     GUILayout.BeginHorizontal();
10.  
11. (...)

Unity console was raising a null reference exception on that line, every time I opened the Asset Inventory window.
I added an extra null check, and the "crash on Play Mode" issue was gone.

Code (CSharp):

1. if (_contents != null && _contents.Length > 0)

EDIT: Other crashes still happen if I type anything on the Asset Inventory search bar, then enter Play Mode.
These crashes seem to be more frequent when Domain Reload is disabled (in Enter Play Mode Options), but they still happen even if Domain Reload is enabled.

 

Thanks a lot for reporting @andreiagmu. Which version are you using of the tool? I have never encountered this issue before and wonder how it could ever reach the code line you pointed out. The first thing that is done in OnGUI is to check if the app if playing and if yes, no UI will be drawn. Are you saying, when you press play you still can use the Asset Inventory?

I added the null check for the upcoming 1.6 version anyway but would really like to get to the bottom of this. Is the crash gone when you remove the Asset Inventory again?

 

I was using Asset Inventory v1.5.0, as I mentioned in my post above. I just upgraded to v1.6.0, and the crash issue still occurs (but it seems it became less frequent now).

Yeah, I know about that inital "app is playing" check in OnGUI.

Normally, when the app plays, the Asset Inventory window gets disabled (it displays that "Asset Inventory can't be used while in play mode" warning). Then the window reappears as usual after I exit play mode .
But most times, if I have something typed in Asset Inventory's search bar, when I click play Unity almost immediately crashes.

I think the issue is related to some editor coroutine that isn't being canceled in time when I press play, and maybe this is causing a memory leak or race condition, something like that. I'm just guessing here.

By the way, there's another bug where the asset previews aren't being regenerated when I go back to the editor from play mode. I have to type something on the search bar to regenerate the asset previews.

 

The coroutine hint is a good one, I'll check this. About the preview images yes that is some sort of weird drawing behavior of Unity, noted to be fixed!

 

Oh what could help @andreiagmu if you could send me the Editor.log after the crash. This could really help to identify the spot that causes it.

 

Sure! Here's the logs from a crash I just reproduced in a clean project, on Unity 2021.3.11. The project only has Asset Inventory imported.

To reproduce this, I pinned the Asset Inventory tab at the bottom section (near my Project and Console tabs), and clicked Play. I'm opening the Game view in non-Maximized mode, for this test.
Then, I kept entering and exiting play mode, typing stuff on Asset Inventory's search bar ("grass", "sand", etc.) to display my assets.
Sometimes, the crash may trigger if I display another tab (Project, Console) instead of Asset Inventory, then click Play. But that may be coincidental, sometimes the crashes also happen even if I didn't change the tab.

I feel like the crashes are more frequent when I display large numbers of assets in Asset Inventory (500, 1000...), and less frequent otherwise.
That's one more reason which makes me think it's a coroutine issue.

 

Wouldn't it be better to store the previews in individual folders by the package name or something?

I use Everything (highly recommended) and well viewing thumbnails outside of a Unity is way faster even in Explorer..but I don't like a folder 10,000+ image files in it maybe 1000's of folders 100's of images...cus everything doesn't care about that.... but not all in one folder... which just leaves going through pages in your asset.. and its not like i can look up a preview I saw like 'af-9891.png' in your asset to see which package that is from!



Database size is reported.. should really report Preview size

 

Having any sort of named sub structure is not something I would like to introduce since it is exactly the reason why the Unity cache is so horrible. Asset names change so often that it gets invalidated and needs some sort of life cycle. What I could imagine is having a sub structure by Asset id if that is of any help, so it would be Previews/12763/af-32432.png.

More statistics is already requested multiple times and planned for 1.7!

 

that would be fine. .just some way to actually reverse find the asset/image .. so I could look up 12763 or af-32432.png in asset inventory and find the package/file it was from.

 

should I hold off indexing assets for this update or will it not need to reindex?

 

I will build it in a way that it is compatible and automatically reorganizes the existing files

 

The new release 1.6 has just been published:

- Support indexing zip archives!
- Support determining dependencies of binary serialized files (but without scripts)!
- Index colors & Search/Sort by color (default inactive as it takes a while to index)
- Expert search with input validation and field picker
- Support updating individual packages to newest version
- Support bulk-updating individual packages to newest version (experimental)
- Easy mode: Update everything in one go with only one button
- New deduplication workflow
- Treat storage location of packages as main differentiator
- Support having the same package multiple times in multiple locations
- Update metadata of all duplicate packages
- Handle "outdated" calculation much better
- Remove old asset splitting logic
- More efficient and faster update of Asset Store metadata
- Ability to open package in Package Manager
- New maintenance view: "Duplicate" showing packages pointing to same Asset Store asset
- New maintenance view: "Updates Available", with newest updates shown first
- New maintenance view: Not Downloaded
- Improve display of ratings (no empty stars)
- New bulk action: Open Package Locations
- Retry failed web requests one time (solves Curl error shown every now and then, error will still occur though)
- Ensure local package header data is preferred to new online data to represent the actual indexed truth
- Page through search results with arrow keys
- Jump to first and last search result with page up/down
- Show if a package is disabled/abandoned
- Show update available info only if newer update is not yet downloaded in a duplicate asset
- New setting to exclude newly added packages per default
- Reinclude packages automatically when triggering manual reindexing of package
- Optimize database maintenance command
- Allow hiding search results without preview image
- Rename long source url files to consistent short form
- Allow creating a debug report for easier support
- Hide Reindex button if it is not applicable
- Fix incorrect version stored in duplicate bundles
- Fix indexing failing if cached assets are deleted inbetween
- Fix preview images sometimes not getting generated
- Fix SemVer parsing errors in edge cases
- Fix icons not displaying tooltips
- Fix "goblin" bug: duplication of packages due to identical package filename
- Fix end of package download not correctly updating package location data

While I initially aimed to mostly focus on features under the hood and also did a lot of work there, quite many visible features managed to sneak in as well. Here my favorites this release:

Many crucial parts of the indexing flow were enhanced to provide a much more reliable state when there are multiple versions of an asset in the cache, which happens very frequently whenever asset authors change theirs or their asset's name.

Building on the header information in packages introduced with the last release you can now see available updates easily (also with an indicator in the header) and trigger single and bulk updates.

Two completely new indexers were also added: it is now possible to index Zip archives and the tool can also extract color information (activate it in the settings), making it possible to search for items by color.

More advanced new features are an expert search that gets triggered by starting a search with '=' and the support for many binary serialized files so that their dependencies can now also be determined.

UI-wise you will find some nice simplifications, more status information and additional maintenance views in the package perspective. And of course there is a good list of bugfixes as well which should make the tool even more robust.

I strongly recommend to do a force update of the local and online data (hold CTRL key before clicking the update button under settings) to have all data up-to-date.

Thanks to everyone who helped shape this release. Have fun and I'm looking forward to your feedback and suggestions for future versions! And as always, if you want to support me, please leave a review and spread the word

 

I just finished a first implementation and conversion for the next update. As a side-effect I actually verify if preview files are still in use and delete any outdated ones. That should help a lot with all kinds of downstream processes later.

 

is that in 1.6 then?

 

No that will be 1.7, just wanted to give a heads-up

 

oh ok.. the timing did seem like superfast let alone the unity asset store delays to updates

 

Do think you could ever get the tags from the asset store for packages? notice it does have tagging support but its user input.

Other questions do you think you'll ever support a build release? (maybe when new UI matures) one where we point the release build to the asset inventory folder/json and not have to run a Unity editor instance?

 

Regarding tags, that is already in, Asset Store tags are imported. The second part I do not fully understand yet. What is a build release? Could you provide an example?

 

as in you compile project run it as an exe.. using an in game UI, currently its all just in editor... maybe not full functionality of the editor.. but at least the database/previews could be utilized

 

when does it get to adding the tags? all the tag columns are empty... though its done plenty of previews for packages... I didnt' let it finish everything though

 

The tags are added when the purchased assets are loaded from the Asset Store. Does that not happen for you? I will check if something might be off here.

 

Understood! What would be the scenario here? Creating an app that can mimic the in-Unity browser? What actions would it allow? Sorry for the questions, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. As of now you could already connect to the SQLite database and retrieve all the info, preview locations etc.

 

yeah it says its indexed those ones.. but no tags.. also be nice to sort the indexed column.... but I didn't let it finish indexing all the packages as rather just wait until the next update with the folderized previews.... have almost 1000 on the asset store account wasn't sure if it does that tagging at the end or if it had just indexed downloaded assets from the store?


for app... yeah for it to mimic the in-unity browser ..pretty much that... doesn't need to include the indexing stuff.. just functionality for looking at packages/searching so that would still use the sqlite db still have something to point to the preview folder root etc ...basically then its more portable with the previews/built player of it could be stored on a network drive etc and wouldn't require needing to run the unity editor to access that info.. also be faster to start up than unitys potato editor loading speeds, less ram usage than the editor etc

 

Having it available at runtime is probably something that I cannot really invest a lot of time in as it is a very specific use-case and not really that useful in my opinion in the end as you could not trigger any import but only view the data.

I would rather invest into a web/html export feature which would probably fulfill the same purpose.

Regarding Unity, why not create a super simple no-dependencies empty Unity-project, put the Asset Inventory in there as the main window? This way it will start up really fast and is a separate app.

 

that is what I already did.. .is still overhead to it.. but "I would rather invest into a web/html export feature which would probably fulfill the same purpose." would work aswel I suppose