---
title: "Access the friendly URL of a media item"
slug: "access-the-friendly-url-of-a-media-item"
abstract: "How to access the friendly URL of a media item using the Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaManager.GetMediaUrl() method."
---
# Access the friendly URL of a media item

You can use the `Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaManager.GetMediaUrl()` method to access the friendly URL of a media item. For example, to access the friendly URL of the media item */Sitecore/Media Library/Images/Sample* in the *Master* database:

```

Sitecore.Data.Database master = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabase("master");
Sitecore.Data.Items.Item sampleItem = master.GetItem("/sitecore/media library/images/sample");
Sitecore.Data.Items.Item sampleMedia = new Sitecore.Data.Items.MediaItem(sampleItem);

string url = Sitecore.StringUtil.EnsurePrefix('/', Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaManager.GetMediaUrl(sampleMedia));

```

> [!warning]
> Sitecore does not automatically include the leading slash character (“/”) in media URLs. This results in relative URLs for media items, which IIS resolves to the document root due to the tilde character (“~”). In solutions with very deep information architectures, relative media URLs can exceed limits imposed by the Web client or the Web server. Use the `Sitecore.StringUtil.EnsurePrefix()` method as shown in the previous example to ensure media URLs include the leading slash character.

You can use the `Sitecore.Links.UrlBuilders.MediaUrlBuilderOptions` class to specify media options. For example, to retrieve the URL of the thumbnail of the */Sitecore/Media Library/Images/Sample* media item in the *Master* database:

```

Sitecore.Data.Database master = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetDatabase("master");
Sitecore.Data.Items.Item sampleItem = master.GetItem("/sitecore/media library/images/sample");
Sitecore.Data.Items.MediaItem sampleMedia = new Sitecore.Data.Items.MediaItem(sampleItem);

Sitecore.Links.UrlBuilders.MediaUrlBuilderOptions mediaOptions = new Sitecore.Links.UrlBuilders.MediaUrlBuilderOptions();
mediaOptions.Thumbnail = true;

string url = Sitecore.StringUtil.EnsurePrefix('/', Sitecore.Resources.Media.MediaManager.GetMediaUrl(sampleMedia, mediaOptions));

```