A group is the main organizational unit of the Addressables system. Use the Addressables Groups window to create and manage your groups and the assets they contain.
You can organize your Addressables into groups and assign settings to each group to control how the assets are handled when you create a content build. See Organizing Addressable Assets for information about ways to organize your assets.
When you perform a content build, the build scripts create AssetBundles containing the assets in a group. The build determines the number of bundles to create and where to create them from both the settings of the group and your overall Addressables system settings. See Builds for more information.
[!NOTE] Addressable Groups only exist in the Unity Editor. The Addressables runtime code does not use a group concept. However, you can assign a label to the assets in a group if you want to find and load all the assets that were part of that group. See Loading Addressable assets for more information about selecting the assets to load using labels.
Open the Addressables Groups window (menu: Window > Asset Management > Addressables > Groups) to manage your groups and Addressable assets. See Addressables Groups window for details about the information and features of this window.
To create a group:
For groups containing assets that you plan to distribute with your main application, the default settings are a reasonable starting point. For groups containing assets that you plan to distribute remotely, you must change the build and load paths to use the remote versions of the Profile path variables. (To build AssetBundles for remote distribution, you must also enable the Build Remote Catalog option in your Addressable System Settings.)
See Group settings for more information about individual settings.
Do one of the following:
[!NOTE] If you add assets in a Resources folder to a group, the Addressables system first moves the assets to a non-Resource location. You can move the assets elsewhere, but Addressable assets cannot be stored in a Resources folder in your Project.
Select one or more assets in the Groups window and choose Remove Addressables from the context menu (or press the Delete key).
To locate an Addressable Asset in the Groups window type all or part of its address, path, or a label into the filter control on the Groups window toolbar.
Filtering the group list by the string "NP" to find all assets labeled NPC
To locate the asset in your project, click on it in the Groups window. Unity selects the asset in the Project window and displays the asset's Inspector.
[!TIP]
- To view the groups of the assets found, enable Hierarchical Search; disable this option to only show groups if they match the search string. Click the magnifying glass icon in the search box to enable or disable Hierarchical Search.
- To view subobject addresses, such as the Sprites in a Sprite Atlas, enable the Show Sprite and Subobject Addresses option using the Tools menu on the Groups window toolbar.
Select one or more assets in the Groups window, then click on the label field for one of the selected assets.
To assign labels, check or uncheck the boxes for the desired labels.
Click the Manage Labels button to add, remove, or rename your labels. See Labels for more information on how labels can be used.
Use the Groups window to manage your groups and Addressable assets.
The Groups window also serves as a central location for starting content builds and accessing the tools and settings of the Addressables system.
The Addressables Groups window showing the toolbar and list of groups and assets.
The Group list displays the Addressable groups in your Project. Expand a group in the list to show the assets it contains. You can also expand composite assets, such as Sprite sheets, to show the subobjects they contain.
When you first install the Addressables package, the Groups window displays two groups of assets:
Built In Data: contains assets in any Project Resource folders and any Scenes included in the Build Settings list. (None of these assets can be Addressable unless removed from Resources or the Scene list.)
Default Local Group (Default): Initially empty, any assets you make Addressable are added to this group. The group is set up so that its assets are built to your local build path and included in your Project builds. You can change the name, settings, and make another group the default group, if desired.
The list columns contain the following information:
Column | Purpose |
---|---|
Group Name \ Addressable Name | The name of the item. For groups, this is an arbitrary name that you can assign. For assets, this is the Addressable address. You can edit the name or address using the context menu. |
Icon | The Unity asset icon based on asset type. |
Path | The path to the source asset in your Project. |
Labels | Shows any labels assigned to the asset. Click on a Label entry to change the assigned labels or to manage your label definitions. |
You can sort the assets shown in the Group list by clicking one of the column headers. This sorts the assets within each group, but does not reorder the groups themselves. You can change the order in which your groups are displayed by dragging them into the desired position.
Open the Group context menu (Right- or Cmd-click a group name) to access group-related commands:
The Group content menu
Command | Action |
---|---|
Remove Group(s) | Removes the Group (deleting its ScriptableObject asset). Any assets in the group revert to non-Addressable. |
Simplify Addressable Names | Shortens the name of assets in the group by removing path-like components and extensions. |
Set as Default | Designates the group as the default group. When you mark an asset as Addressable without explicitly assigning a group, it is added to the default group. |
Inspect Group Settings | Selects the group asset in the Unity Project window and Inspector so that you can view the settings. |
Rename | Allows you to edit the name. |
Create New Group | Create a new group based on a group template. |
Open the Addressable Asset context menu (Right- or Cmd-click an asset address) to access asset-related commands:
Addressable Asset context menu
Command | Action |
---|---|
Move Addressables to Group | Move the selected assets to a different, existing group. |
Move Addressables to New Group | Create a new group with the same settings as the current group and move the selected assets to it. |
Remove Addressables | Remove the selected assets from the Group and make it non-Addressable. |
Simplify Addressable Names | Shortens the names of the selected assets by removing path-like components and extensions. |
Copy Address to CLipboard | Copies the assigned address string to your system Clipboard so that you can paste it in another field. |
Change Address | Allows you to edit the name. |
Create New Group | Create a new group based on a group template. (Does not move the selected assets.) |
The toolbar at the top of the Addressables Group window provides access to the following commands and tools:
Create a group.
Choose a template for the group or Blank for no schema.
See Group templates for information about creating your own templates.
Set the active Profile to determine the paths used for building and loading Addressables.
Select an existing profile or choose Manage Profiles to open the Profiles window.
See Profiles for more information.
Choose from a menu of settings windows and tools.
Set the active Play Mode Script.
The active Play Mode Script determines how Addressables are loaded in the Editor Play mode. See Play Mode Scripts for more information.
Select a content build command.
See Builds for more information.
Find items in the group list matching the specified string.
An item is shown if the specified string matches any part of the text in any column in the list.
[!TIP] Click the magnifying glass icon to enable or disable Hierarchical Search, which shows results within their assigned group rather than as a flat list.
The active Play Mode Script determines how the Addressable system accesses Addressable assets when you run your game in the Editor Play mode. When you select a Play Mode Script, it remains the active script until you choose a different one. The Play Mode Script has no effect on asset loading when you build and run your application outside the Editor.
The Play Mode Scripts include: