Policies contain the optimization and transformation configuration settings to be applied to your images or videos. A image policy set can contain only image policies, and a video policy set can contain only video policies.

A default policy is automatically generated when a new policy set is created. You can create as many policy sets and policies as you need on a single contract.

Policies are created in one of two ways:

By setting Apply Existing Policy Set to No in the Image & Video Manager behavior that you add to your Image & Video Manager rule. This automatically creates a new policy set containing a default policy when the rule is saved.
By logging into Akamai Control Center, navigating to ☰ > CDN > Image & Video Manager, and using the Policy Manager tools.

All policies must be configured using the Image & Video Manager Policy Editor.

Image and video policies

Image and video optimization settings must be configured in separate image and video policies.

Image policy

An image policy contains:

Image optimization settings such as derivative image quality, derivative image widths (breakpoints), and the quality value override for slow connections.
Image transformations and conditions such as Rotate, Resize, Crop, Watermark, If Dimension, If Orientation, and so on. If Dimension and If Orientation allow you to conditionalize the application of transformations based on image dimension and orientation.

Video policy

A video policy contains:

Video optimization settings such as derivative video quality and resolution.
an optional setting to add a placeholder video which will play while the requested video loads.
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Default and custom policy

Depending on the complexity of your configuration, you may decide to create additional, custom policies. Default policies and custom policies are edited in the same way.

Default policy

A default policy is automatically created when a new policy set is created in Policy Manager. A new policy set and default policy is also created when you create a new Image & Video Manager rule if Apply Existing Policy Set is toggled to No in the Image & Video Manager (Images) or (Videos) behavior.

The default policy contains the default settings that determine how Image & Video Manager generates derivatives for the policy set. You can configure the default policy to change optimization and transformation settings.

The default policy is automatically applied if both of the following are true:

The request matches a Property Manager rule that contains an enabled Image & Video Manager behavior.
The request does not include a query string parameter indicating another specific and valid custom policy name.

Custom policy

You can create and configure a custom policy to apply different quality settings and artistic transformations. Once configured, use Image & Video Manager parameters to associate the correct custom policy with each request. For more information about applying custom policies, see Apply your policies. You may also want to look at some of the use cases and examples.