Mnemo: Local Video Library

Version 2.9.0 - Desktop application for managing and watching your local video collection

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What is Mnemo?

Mnemo organizes and plays the videos you already have on disk. Unlike media servers, it never moves or renames anything: you browse your library by its real folder structure, like a file explorer, while Mnemo keeps titles, thumbnails, tags and watch progress in a local SQLite database.

Features

• Folder-based library: add folders and browse their real hierarchy, with breadcrumbs, per-folder progress and custom icons and icon colors for library folders.
• Rename library folders in the app: give a library folder a name of your own (right-click it and choose "Rename", or press F2 on it). The folder on disk keeps its name, which still shows in the folder's tooltip and on its screen; clear the name, or choose "Reset to folder name", to use it again.
• Sort and filter: sort a folder's videos by name, duration or date added, and show only unwatched, in-progress or watched ones.
• Two ways to view a folder: Folders shows only what is directly inside it; Continuous lists every video below it grouped by subfolder, and playback continues from one subfolder to the next (great for courses). Subfolders inherit the choice until you change it.
• Adjustable sidebar: drag its edge to resize it, or collapse it to a rail of icons that still reaches every screen and folder. It opens the way you left it.
• Library folder order: sort the library folders by name, date added or the most recently watched, or arrange them yourself by holding and dragging them (or with the keyboard, or "Move up"/"Move down"). Pin a folder or a group to keep it at the top of its list in any order. The order is kept everywhere they are listed, including backups.
• Folder groups: organize the library folders into groups of your own (such as "Series" or "Courses") from the sort menu or a folder's "Move to group". Groups sit among the other folders in the order you choose, and the sort modes apply to them too (by name, date created or the most recently watched folder inside). Drag folders into a group, out of it or between groups (holding a folder over a collapsed group opens it), collapse a group to its name and folder count, and move groups by dragging their headers. Deleting a group never removes its folders: they stay where the group was (pinned ones stay pinned). With no groups, the sidebar looks as it always did.
• Home: the video to resume first, large, with the others in progress beside it, then suggestions, recently watched and a preview of each library folder.
• Any window size: from 640×480 (half a laptop screen) up; in a narrow window the sidebar becomes a rail that opens over the screen and the player's playlist moves under the video.
• Zoom: Ctrl +, Ctrl - and Ctrl 0 (or Ctrl and the mouse wheel) zoom the interface from 67% to 300%, kept between sessions.
• Hidden folders: hide any folder from the home page, search and history (right-click it and choose "Hide from home and history"). Its videos still play normally when you open the folder, progress is still saved, and Settings lists every hidden folder to show it again.
• Built-in player: resumes where you stopped, subtitles from a file next to the video (.srt, .vtt, .sub, .ass) or embedded in it (text tracks of MKV and MP4), switching between audio tracks where the system's webview can play them, speeds from 0.25× to 2×, the folder's playlist beside the video (or under it in a narrow window), a countdown to the next video, the description and tags under it, plus keyboard and mouse shortcuts. Volume, speed, subtitles and theater mode are remembered between sessions.
• Mini player: shrink the window to a small video that stays on top of other apps in a corner of the screen, with just the essential controls; subtitles, the countdown to the next video and every shortcut keep working, and expanding it puts the window back exactly as it was.
• Pin window: keep the whole Mnemo window on top of other apps at any size, from the player's controls or a key of your choice that works on every screen (until you unpin it or close the app).
• Subtitle style: size, color, background and its opacity, outline, position and font, with a live preview.
• Custom thumbnails: use the frame on screen as a video's thumbnail, or go back to the automatic one.
• Watch status: videos count as watched at 90% by default (adjustable from 50% to 100%) or when they end; mark videos or whole folders as watched or unwatched.
• History: the videos you watched, by day, and your watched time per day or week.
• Tags: tag videos individually or a whole folder at once, search by tag, and clean up tags in Settings.
• Search: search the library by title, description and tag, or search file names on disk inside a folder, including videos not read yet.
• Background processing: durations and thumbnails are read with ffmpeg in the background, several files at a time, with progress, details per folder and a cancel button.
• Follows your folders: new videos show up on their own. Renamed or moved videos keep their progress, tags and history, even when the change was made while Mnemo was closed. Deleted videos are kept aside for 30 days in case they come back. Unplugged drives never lose anything, and a folder moved, renamed or whose drive got another letter can be located again, keeping everything (files are never moved).
• Backup: export the whole library to JSON and import it back (exports from Mnemo 1.x are accepted too).
• Maintenance: library statistics, database details and cleanup of videos that no longer belong to a folder or whose file is gone.
• Update notices: Mnemo tells you when a newer version is published on GitHub, with a link to its release page, and Settings → Maintenance can check on demand. It never downloads or installs anything by itself.

Privacy

Mnemo works offline. Its only network request is the update check: once a day at most, shortly after it starts, it asks GitHub's API for the latest published release, sending nothing but the standard request (with Mnemo/<version> as its user agent; GitHub sees your IP address, as with any request). No telemetry, no account. Turn off "Check for updates automatically" in Settings → Maintenance and no request is made unless you click "Check now".

Shortcuts

Press ? anywhere (or the keyboard button in the top bar or the player) to see every shortcut. Player, window and back/forward keys can be changed in Settings → Shortcuts; the tables below show the defaults. "Pin window" has no key until you give it one.

Anywhere

Keys	Action
Alt+← / mouse back button	Go back (closes the player)
Alt+→ / mouse forward button	Go forward (reopens the last video)
?	Show the keyboard shortcuts
F2 on a library folder in the sidebar	Rename it in the app
Esc in the search field	Clear the search
Ctrl + / Ctrl - / Ctrl 0	Zoom in / out / back to 100%

Player

Keys	Action
Space / K	Play or pause
J / L	Back / forward 10 seconds
← / →	Back / forward 5 seconds
↑ / ↓	Volume up / down 5%
[ / ]	Speed down / up 0.25×
Backspace	Reset speed to 1×
F	Full screen
T	Theater mode
M	Mute
C	Subtitles on or off
I	Mini player on or off
Esc	Leave full screen or the mini player, or close the player

Right-click a video or a folder (or press Shift+F10 on it) for its actions.

Requirements

• ffmpeg and ffprobe on the PATH, to read durations and create thumbnails. Mnemo still opens without them and tells you what is missing.
  • Windows: winget install Gyan.FFmpeg
  • macOS: brew install ffmpeg
  • Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install ffmpeg
• Windows: WebView2 (included in Windows 10 and 11).

Install

Download the latest installer from the Releases page.

Published binaries are currently Windows-only (.exe with NSIS and .msi). macOS and Linux can build from source.

Upgrading from 1.x

Just install and open the new version: your existing library (mnemo.db) is upgraded in place and nothing is lost. Back it up first if you want to be able to go back, since 1.x cannot read the upgraded database or 2.0 exports.

OS	Data folder
Windows	%APPDATA%\com.mnemo
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/com.mnemo
Linux	~/.config/com.mnemo (database) and ~/.local/share/com.mnemo (thumbnails)

Build from source

Prerequisites

• Bun
• Rust (stable)
• The Tauri prerequisites for your OS:
  • Windows: Microsoft C++ Build Tools ("Desktop development with C++"). If Smart App Control is on, it blocks the executables Cargo builds; turn it off to compile.
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools.
  • Linux: WebKitGTK and the other packages listed by Tauri.
• ffmpeg and ffprobe (see Requirements).

Run and build

bun install          # dependencies
bun tauri dev        # run the app in development
bun tauri build      # installers in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

Checks

bun run check        # TypeScript, Biome lint and frontend tests
bun run format       # format the frontend

cd src-tauri
cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test           # backend tests; also regenerates the TypeScript bindings

In development, Ctrl+Shift+D opens the design system catalog.

Technology

• Desktop shell: Tauri 2 with a Rust backend that owns the database, the file system and ffmpeg (SQLite through rusqlite, versioned migrations, typed commands generated with tauri-specta).
• Interface: React 19, TypeScript, TanStack Router, Query and Virtual, Radix UI, dnd-kit, Tailwind CSS 4 with design tokens.
• Tooling: Vite, Bun, Biome, Vitest and Testing Library, clippy and rustfmt.

See CLAUDE.md for the architecture and conventions.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.