Media "watch folder" on server as an alternative to client upload

[gpatkinson]

I have been experimenting with MediaCMS and really like the software. Thank you for all your hard work on this project.

As far as I can tell, the only way to add media is by uploading from a client. This works, but in my case, I have other server-side software pulling video files. So what would really be helpful is being able to assign a "watch folder" where all files within this folder are processed and auto-added to the database, preferably without needing to duplicate the files.

If this type of feature (or a work-around) exists currently, I would appreciate a quick note about it in the docs.

[mgogoulos]

Hello, thanks for your kind words. Besides the uploader, there's also an API that can be used to send new media. Plus there is also a command line client that utilizes this API but is on a separate branch/PR.

What you describe seems like a specialized scenario but I think you can easily implement a solution by creating a script that will monitor the folder and POST new media on the 'Add new media' URL (See what it expects on https://demo.mediacms.io/swagger/). Hope this helps

[mgogoulos]

Video files have to be properly imported by MediaCMS because it performs a number of actions (create preview gif file, poster/thumbnail of different dimensions, encodings for different dimensions/bitrates, HLS files for adaptive streaming). So even if there was a page where you said "my directory is x/y/z, take videos from this and bring them to the system" which is what I am assuming others here are doing, it would still have to get these videos and bring it to media_files/ directory that it is using to server original videos and produced files.

[srvprivate]

Yes, you can look at this more like a MaM too. I have used one called Flow by EditShare where they allow mounting of SMB shares (et al) and will scan the directory and import into the database, making proxies, etc. That is all done in python, so I know it's possible!

[srvprivate]

Any new news on this? a year later?

[thomisus]

I ended up creating another endpoint to trigger local file scan and auto create media from those files.

Could you share your solution?

[assassinliujie]

Actually, I think what many people want is to use the project's UI to index and watch videos from their own existing files, rather than reprocessing existing videos and redistributing them. Is it possible to distribute the original files directly?

[ttkrpink]

I am in the same situation where the media files are uploaded to a folder by another program. So, the suggested method will be to upload the files to MediaCMS again using the APIs so MediaCMS can process the files.

Is that correct?

[thomisus]

Same situation here. Media/Videos are on an external server/share that I'd like to not touch because is ready to be edited or archived but I'd like to index and categorize it.
What would be great is a way to recursively scan a "watch folder" ( or trigger with inotify ) then import metadata and create low res previews and assign it to a default user, leaving original files in the starting location.

[srvprivate]

I think we need to formally open a case on this. In 2025, re-uploading is not going to work for many people who have a share or index of files sitting somewhere. Many people have files sitting in numerous places. There is definitely a way to write the code to index files sitting elsewhere. I've used plenty of programs like Flow by EditShare that does an indexing scan, and I know this is possible. Many people would thank you for this! I have not used MediaCMS in a year for this issue alone, and would use it and promote others to if scanning were an option.

[davidcmsmith]

I'm in a situation where I have a bunch of pre transcoded files that I would like to bring to this platform, however it seems that I would need to bring the original files to mediacms again in order to index and transcode again.

[crocodisle]

Yes, this would be totally awesome! MediaCMS is 90% there for my use case, but it's this sort of feature alone that's keeping me from adopting it. I don't need transcoding or file copying, I just need to point MediaCMS at a directory and have it index/reference those files directly.

Looks like this is something that's been talked about for a few years at this point, so it continues to be a need. Currently, I can't find any video player that does this that also has an option to embed videos.
#180

[Clear2437]

Would be nice to see some progress on this eventually. The ticket is open for 4 years already, I would think this should be quite high in priority as it seems like a basic core feature for a video platform.
Appreciate your work!

[srvprivate]

I don't use MediaCMS all the time right now because of this. What can we do to triage something?

I want to use it, but manually uploading is a little dated. There are ways to scan and import with metadata and transcoding. You're not far off. Is it beyond your time/skill at the moment?

[srvprivate]

Adding this as an official need for documentation. @mgogoulos I'm going to embark on this API stuff, but could use some help. I really want to see this take off having automatic POST. Like for example, I use TubeArchivist for all my Youtube videos, think about this — auto archiving youtube channels is brilliant, but tying that into MediaCMS is even more brilliant. I chose MediaCMS over Peertube.

Secondly, MeTube (a derivative of yt-dlp) is excellent for downloading say, Facebook live videos. Think about the flow here, I can automate almost everything, and it ends up in my media library just with a click of a button, and if I want to share something I can give a link! That's my goal here. What is the best place to start on getting this to work?