Why Wrong CSV Headers Get Your Stock Uploads Rejected Before Anyone Looks At Them
Last March I lost a whole weekend to a header row. I had 60 JPGs ready for Adobe Stock, a CSV I'd built by hand in a spreadsheet, and I hit submit. The rejection came back in under a minute. Not a review rejection, not quality, the file never got that far. The parser choked on my header row and the whole batch bounced. I fixed the header, resubmitted, and got a second rejection for a different…
When uploading stock images to platforms like Adobe Stock, Vecteezy, and Dreamstime, it is crucial to ensure the CSV headers are correct to avoid rejection before anyone even reviews the content. Adobe Stock requires 5 columns, Vecteezy 4, and Dreamstime 15. A mismatch in column count or order leads to a metadata error, causing the batch to be bounced back without human review.
Common mistakes include trailing commas, incorrect keyword fields, and file extension issues. To streamline the process, a Python script called make_metadata.py was created to automatically generate the correct header for each platform. This script uses only the Python standard library and takes a folder of files and a platform flag as input.
Additionally, an upload_tracker.py script keeps track of already uploaded files to prevent double-posting. By adhering to these practices and using these tools, the time-consuming and frustrating process of fixing CSV headers can be avoided, allowing creators to focus on the more creative aspects of their work.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
