Create an image labeling project and export labels

Learn how to create and run data labeling projects to label images in Azure Machine Learning. Use machine-learning-assisted data labeling, or human-in-the-loop labeling, to aid with the task.

Set up labels for classification, object detection (bounding box), or instance segmentation (polygon).

You can also use the data labeling tool to create a text labeling project.

Image labeling capabilities

Azure Machine Learning data labeling is a central place to create, manage, and monitor data labeling projects:

  • Coordinate data, labels, and team members to efficiently manage labeling tasks.
  • Tracks progress and maintains the queue of incomplete labeling tasks.
  • Start and stop the project and control the labeling progress.
  • Review the labeled data and export labeled as an Azure Machine Learning dataset.


Data images must be files available in an Azure blob datastore. (If you do not have an existing datastore, you may upload files during project creation.)

Image data can be files with any of these types: ".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".jpe", ".jfif", ".bmp", ".tif", ".tiff", ".dcm", ".dicom". Each file is an item to be labeled.


  • The data that you want to label, either in local files or in Azure blob storage.
  • The set of labels that you want to apply.
  • The instructions for labeling.
  • A Machine Learning workspace. See Create an Azure Machine Learning workspace.

Create an image labeling project

Labeling projects are administered from Azure Machine Learning. You use the Data Labeling page to manage your projects.

If your data is already in Azure Blob storage, you should make it available as a datastore before you create the labeling project. For an example of using a datastore, see Tutorial: Create your first image classification labeling project.

  1. To create a project, select Add project. Give the project an appropriate name. The project name cannot be reused, even if the project is deleted in future.

  2. Select Image to create an image labeling project.

    Labeling project creation for mage labeling

    • Choose Image Classification Multi-class for projects when you want to apply only a single label from a set of labels to an image.
    • Choose Image Classification Multi-label for projects when you want to apply one or more labels from a set of labels to an image. For instance, a photo of a dog might be labeled with both dog and daytime.
    • Choose Object Identification (Bounding Box) for projects when you want to assign a label and a bounding box to each object within an image.
    • Choose Instance Segmentation (Polygon) for projects when you want to assign a label and draw a polygon around each object within an image.
  3. Select Next when you're ready to continue.

Add workforce (optional)

Select Use a vendor labeling company from Azure Marketplace only if you've engaged a data labeling company from Azure Marketplace. Then select the vendor. If your vendor doesn't appear in the list, unselect this option.

Make sure you first contact the vendor and sign a contract. For more information, see Work with a data labeling vendor company (preview).

Select Next to continue.

Specify the data to label

If you already created a dataset that contains your data, select it from the Select an existing dataset drop-down list. Or, select Create a dataset to use an existing Azure datastore or to upload local files.


A project cannot contain more than 500,000 files. If your dataset has more, only the first 500,000 files will be loaded.

Create a dataset from an Azure datastore

In many cases, it's fine to just upload local files. But Azure Storage Explorer provides a faster and more robust way to transfer a large amount of data. We recommend Storage Explorer as the default way to move files.

To create a dataset from data that you've already stored in Azure Blob storage:

  1. Select Create a dataset > From datastore.
  2. Assign a Name to your dataset.
  3. Dataset type is set to file, only file dataset types are supported for images.
  4. Select the datastore.
  5. If your data is in a subfolder within your blob storage, choose Browse to select the path.
    • Append "/**" to the path to include all the files in subfolders of the selected path.
    • Append "**/." to include all the data in the current container and its subfolders.
  6. (Optional) Provide a description for your dataset.
  7. Select Next.
  8. Confirm the details. Select Back to modify the settings or Create to create the dataset.

Create a dataset from uploaded data

To directly upload your data:

  1. Select Create a dataset > From local files.
  2. Assign a Name to your dataset.
  4. (Optional) Provide a description for your dataset.
  5. Select Next.
  6. (Optional) Select or create a datastore. Or keep the default to upload to the default blob store ("workspaceblobstore") of your Machine Learning workspace.
  7. Select Browse to select the local files or folder(s) to upload.
  8. Select Next.

Configure incremental refresh

If you plan to add new files to your dataset, use incremental refresh to add these new files your project. When incremental refresh is enabled, the dataset is checked periodically for new files to be added to a project, based on the labeling completion rate. The check for new data stops when the project contains the maximum 500,000 files.

To add more files to your project, use Azure Storage Explorer to upload to the appropriate folder in the blob storage.

Select Enable incremental refresh when you want your project to continually monitor for new data in the datastore. Data will be pulled into your project once a day when enabled. After you add new data to the datastore, you'll have to wait before it shows up in your project. You can see a timestamp for when data was last refreshed in the Incremental refresh section of Details tab for your project. Unselect if you don't want new files in the datastore to be added to your project.

Specify label classes

On the Label classes page, specify the set of classes to categorize your data. Your labelers' accuracy and speed are affected by their ability to choose among the classes. For instance, instead of spelling out the full genus and species for plants or animals, use a field code or abbreviate the genus.

Enter one label per row. Use the + button to add a new row. If you have more than three or four labels but fewer than 10, you may want to prefix the names with numbers ("1: ", "2: ") so the labelers can use the number keys to speed their work.

Describe the image labeling task

It's important to clearly explain the labeling task. On the Labeling instructions page, you can add a link to an external site for labeling instructions, or provide instructions in the edit box on the page. Keep the instructions task-oriented and appropriate to the audience. Consider these questions:

  • What are the labels they'll see, and how will they choose among them? Is there a reference text to refer to?
  • What should they do if no label seems appropriate?
  • What should they do if multiple labels seem appropriate?
  • What confidence threshold should they apply to a label? Do you want their "best guess" if they aren't certain?
  • What should they do with partially occluded or overlapping objects of interest?
  • What should they do if an object of interest is clipped by the edge of the image?
  • What should they do after they submit a label if they think they made a mistake?

For bounding boxes, important questions include:

  • How is the bounding box defined for this task? Should it be entirely on the interior of the object, or should it be on the exterior? Should it be cropped as closely as possible, or is some clearance acceptable?
  • What level of care and consistency do you expect the labelers to apply in defining bounding boxes?
  • How to label the object that is partially shown in the image?
  • How to label the object that partially covered by other object?


Be sure to note that the labelers will be able to select the first 9 labels by using number keys 1-9.

Use ML-assisted data labeling

The ML-assisted labeling page lets you trigger automatic machine learning models to accelerate labeling tasks. Medical images (".dcm") are not included in assisted labeling.

At the beginning of your labeling project, the items are shuffled into a random order to reduce potential bias. However, any biases that are present in the dataset will be reflected in the trained model. For example, if 80% of your items are of a single class, then approximately 80% of the data used to train the model will be of that class.

Select Enable ML assisted labeling and specify a GPU to enable assisted labeling. If you don't have one in your workspace, a GPU cluster will be created for you and added to your workspace. The cluster is created with a minimum of 0 nodes, which means it doesn't cost anything when it's not in use.

ML-assisted labeling consists of two phases:

  • Clustering
  • Prelabeling

The exact number of labeled data necessary to start assisted labeling is not a fixed number. This can vary significantly from one labeling project to another. For some projects, is sometimes possible to see prelabel or cluster tasks after 300 items have been manually labeled. ML Assisted Labeling uses a technique called Transfer Learning, which uses a pre-trained model to jump-start the training process. If your dataset's classes are similar to those in the pre-trained model, pre-labels may be available after only a few hundred manually labeled items. If your dataset is significantly different from the data used to pre-train the model, it may take much longer.

Since the final labels still rely on input from the labeler, this technology is sometimes called human in the loop labeling.


ML assisted data labeling does not support default storage accounts secured behind a virtual network. You must use a non-default storage account for ML assisted data labelling. The non-default storage account can be secured behind the virtual network.


After a certain number of labels are submitted, the machine learning model for classification starts to group together similar items. These similar images are presented to the labelers on the same screen to speed up manual tagging. Clustering is especially useful when the labeler is viewing a grid of 4, 6, or 9 images.

Once a machine learning model has been trained on your manually labeled data, the model is truncated to its last fully-connected layer. Unlabeled images are then passed through the truncated model in a process commonly known as "embedding" or "featurization." This embeds each image in a high-dimensional space defined by this model layer. Images that are nearest neighbors in the space are used for clustering tasks.

The clustering phase does not appear for object detection models, or for text classification.


After enough labels are submitted, a classification model is used to predict tags. Or an object detection model is used to predict bounding boxes. The labeler now sees pages that contain predicted labels already present on each item. For object detection, predicted boxes are also shown. The task is then to review these predictions and correct any mis-labeled images before submitting the page.

Once a machine learning model has been trained on your manually labeled data, the model is evaluated on a test set of manually labeled items to determine its accuracy at different confidence thresholds. This evaluation process is used to determine a confidence threshold above which the model is accurate enough to show pre-labels. The model is then evaluated against unlabeled data. Items with predictions more confident than this threshold are used for pre-labeling.

Initialize the image labeling project

After the labeling project is initialized, some aspects of the project are immutable. You can't change the task type or dataset. You can modify labels and the URL for the task description. Carefully review the settings before you create the project. After you submit the project, you're returned to the Data Labeling homepage, which will show the project as Initializing.


This page may not automatically refresh. So, after a pause, manually refresh the page to see the project's status as Created.

Run and monitor the project

After you initialize the project, Azure will begin running it. Select the project on the main Data Labeling page to see details of the project.

To pause or restart the project, toggle the Running status on the top right. You can only label data when the project is running.


The Dashboard tab shows the progress of the labeling task.

Data labeling dashboard

The progress chart shows how many items have been labeled, skipped, in need of review, or not yet done. Hover over the chart to see the number of item in each section.

The middle section shows the queue of tasks yet to be assigned. When ML assisted labeling is off, this section shows the number of manual tasks to be assigned. When ML assisted labeling is on, this will also show:

  • Tasks containing clustered items in the queue
  • Tasks containing prelabeled items in the queue

Additionally, when ML assisted labeling is enabled, a small progress bar shows when the next training run will occur. The Experiments sections give links for each of the machine learning runs.

  • Training - trains a model to predict the labels
  • Validation - determines whether this model's prediction will be used for pre-labeling the items
  • Inference - prediction run for new items
  • Featurization - clusters items (only for image classification projects)

On the right side is a distribution of the labels for those tasks that are complete. Remember that in some project types, an item can have multiple labels, in which case the total number of labels can be greater than the total number items.

Data tab

On the Data tab, you can see your dataset and review labeled data. Scroll through the labeled data to see the labels. If you see incorrectly labeled data, select it and choose Reject, which will remove the labels and put the data back into the unlabeled queue.

Details tab

View details of your project. In this tab you can:

  • View project details and input datasets
  • Enable incremental refresh
  • View details of the storage container used to store labeled outputs in your project
  • Add labels to your project
  • Edit instructions you give to your labels
  • Edit details of ML assisted labeling, including enable/disable

Access for labelers

Anyone who has access to your workspace can label data in your project. You can also customize the permissions for labelers so that they can access labeling but not other parts of the workspace or your labeling project. For more information, see Manage access to an Azure Machine Learning workspace, and learn how to create the labeler custom role.

Add new label class to a project

During the data labeling process, you may want to add more labels to classify your items. For example, you may want to add an "Unknown" or "Other" label to indicate confusion.

Use these steps to add one or more labels to a project:

  1. Select the project on the main Data Labeling page.
  2. At the top right of the page, toggle Running to Paused to stop labelers from their activity.
  3. Select the Details tab.
  4. In the list on the left, select Label classes.
  5. At the top of the list, select + Add Labels Add a label
  6. In the form, add your new label. Then choose how to continue the project. Since you've changed the available labels, you choose how to treat the already labeled data:
    • Start over, removing all existing labels. Choose this option if you want to start labeling from the beginning with the new full set of labels.
    • Start over, keeping all existing labels. Choose this option to mark all data as unlabeled, but keep the existing labels as a default tag for images that were previously labeled.
    • Continue, keeping all existing labels. Choose this option to keep all data already labeled as is, and start using the new label for data not yet labeled.
  7. Modify your instructions page as necessary for the new label(s).
  8. Once you've added all new labels, at the top right of the page toggle Paused to Running to restart the project.

Export the labels

Use the Export button on the Project details page of your labeling project. You can export the label data for Machine Learning experimentation at any time.

Access exported Azure Machine Learning datasets in the Datasets section of Machine Learning. The dataset details page also provides sample code to access your labels from Python.

Exported dataset

Once you have exported your labeled data to an Azure Machine Learning dataset, you can use AutoML to build computer vision models trained on your labeled data. Learn more at Set up AutoML to train computer vision models with Python (preview)


Use these tips if you see any of these issues.

Issue Resolution
Only datasets created on blob datastores can be used. Known limitation of the current release.
After creation, the project shows "Initializing" for a long time. Manually refresh the page. Initialization should complete at roughly 20 datapoints per second. The lack of autorefresh is a known issue.
Newly labeled items not visible in data review. To load all labeled items, choose the First button. The First button will take you back to the front of the list, but loads all labeled data.
Unable to assign set of tasks to a specific labeler. Known limitation of the current release.

Object detection troubleshooting

Issue Resolution
Pressing Esc key while labeling for object detection creates a zero size label on the top-left corner. Submitting labels in this state fails. Delete the label by clicking on the cross mark next to it.

Next steps