Media Library

Media Library turns the folders where your files already live (footage, audio, photos, Photoshop and Premiere files, fonts, documents) into a searchable Library with previews, so you stop digging through folders. It can also link pages to project folders, so the files for a video, a post or any project are one click from the page that plans them.

Install it

1. Open Settings → Plugins → Browse and install Media Library.
2. Open Settings → Media Library, click Add folder… and choose where your files live, such as ~/Studio or an external drive.
3. Library appears in the sidebar. The first scan takes a moment; media details (length, resolution) fill in over the next minutes.

Your files are never moved, copied or uploaded: Betelgeuse only reads them. Tags, ratings and notes you add are saved in the workspace (.betelgeuse/library.jsonl); the project folder settings in .betelgeuse/plugins/media-library/; thumbnails and the file index are a cache on this computer. Turning the plugin off stops scanning; your data stays for when you turn it back on.

The Library

• Search names, folders, tags and notes as you type. Narrow it down with filters: goa kind:video duration:>30, #broll, ext:psd, rating:>=4.
• Browse by kind (video, audio, images, raw photos, design files, project files, fonts, documents), by folder, by tag, or by project.
• Preview: hover a video to play it; select a file to see it in the panel on the right (video and audio play from disk); press Space for a big preview.
• Open a file in its app (double-click or Enter), reveal it in Finder, or copy its path.
• Tag, rate and annotate one file or many at once. Tags and notes follow a file when you rename or move it.
• Offline drives keep their files listed, marked offline, until the drive is back.

Video length and resolution need ffmpeg (brew install ffmpeg on a Mac). Thumbnails use Quick Look on macOS and ffmpeg elsewhere.

Project folders

Link a database's pages to folders: choose the database in Settings → Media Library → Project folders (a videos pipeline, a client list, a projects database), say which property groups them (a channel, say) and where each group's folders go. Then each row's page gets an Assets panel:

• Create project folder makes Footage, Audio, Graphics, Project, Exports and Thumbnail in the channel's folder (the template is yours to change).
• Or link an existing folder: Betelgeuse suggests folders whose names match the title.
• The panel lists the folder's files by sub-folder, with Open project for the newest Premiere, After Effects, Resolve or Audacity file.

Import existing projects creates a page for each project folder that doesn't have one, so work from before you started is in the database too. Link folders links pages to folders that clearly match their titles.

Settings

Setting	What it does
Library folders	The folders indexed, with file counts. Removing one forgets its index, never the files.
Thumbnails	Turn previews off, or clear their cache.
Video details	Shows whether ffmpeg was found.
Skip these files and folders	Names to ignore, with * wildcards. Premiere's media cache and similar are skipped by default.
Project folders	The database, the property that groups its pages, the folder per group and the folder template.