Configuration¶

Library¶

This section allows you to add and remove directories from your library list. Files in these directories will be included when scanning. Files that are outside of these directories will be removed when running the Clean task.

⚠️ Note: Don't forget to click Save after updating these directories!

Excluded patterns¶

Given a valid regex, files that match even partially are excluded during the Scan process and are not entered in the database. Also during the Clean task if these files exist in the DB they are removed from it and their generated files get deleted.
Prior to matching both the filenames and patterns are converted to lower case so the match is case insensitive.

Regex patterns can be added in the config file or from the UI.
If you add manually to the config file a restart is needed while from the UI you just need to click the Save button.
When added through the config file directly special care must be given to double escape the \ character.

There are 2 separate exclusion settings. One is for videos, another is for images/galleries.

Some examples:

"sample\.mp4$" will exclude all files ending in sample.mp4.
"/\.[[:word:]]+/" will exclude all hidden directories like /.directoryname/.
"c:\\stash\\videos\\exclude" will exclude specific Windows directory c:\stash\videos\exclude.
"^/stash/videos/exclude/" will exclude all directories that match /stash/videos/exclude/ pattern.
"\\\\stash\\network\\share\\excl\\" will exclude specific Windows network path \\stash\network\share\excl\.

Note: If a directory is excluded for images and videos, then the directory will be excluded from scans completely.

There is a useful regex101 site that can help test and experiment with regexps.

Gallery creation from folders¶

In the Library section you can find an option to create a gallery from each folder containing images. This will be applied on all libraries when activated, including the base folder of a library.

If you wish to apply this on a per folder basis, you can create a file called .nogallery or .forcegallery in a folder that should act different than this global setting.

This will either exclude the folder from becoming a gallery even if the setting is set, or create a gallery from the folder even if the setting is not set.

The file will only be recognized if written in lower case letters.

Files with a dot in front are handled as hidden in the Linux OS and Mac OS, so you will not see those files after creation on your system without setting your file manager accordingly.

Hashing algorithms¶

Stash identifies video files by calculating a hash of the file. There are two algorithms available for hashing: oshash and MD5. MD5 requires reading the entire file, and can therefore be slow, particularly when reading files over a network. oshash (which uses OpenSubtitle's hashing algorithm) only reads 64k from each end of the file.

The hash is used to name the generated files such as preview images and videos, and sprite images.

By default, new systems have MD5 calculation disabled for optimal performance. Existing systems that are upgraded will have the oshash populated for each scene on the next scan.

Changing the hashing algorithm¶

To change the file naming hash to oshash, all scenes must have their oshash values populated. oshash population is done automatically when scanning.

To change the file naming hash to MD5, the MD5 must be populated for all scenes. To do this, Calculate MD5 for videos must be enabled and the library must be rescanned.

MD5 calculation may only be disabled if the file naming hash is set to oshash.

After changing the file naming hash, any existing generated files will now be named incorrectly. This means that stash will not find them and may regenerate them if the Generate task is used. To remedy this, run the Rename generated files task, which will rename existing generated files to their correct names.

Step-by-step instructions to migrate to oshash for existing users¶

These instructions are for existing users whose systems will be defaulted to use and calculate MD5 checksums. Once completed, MD5 checksums will no longer be calculated when scanning, and oshash will be used for generated file naming. Existing calculated MD5 checksums will remain on scenes, but checksums will not be calculated for new scenes.

Scan the library (to populate oshash for all existing scenes).
In Settings -> System page, untick Calculate MD5 and select oshash as file naming hash. Save the configuration.
In Settings -> Tasks page, click on the Rename generated files migration button.

Parallel scan/generation¶

Number of parallel task for scan/generation¶

This setting controls how many sub-tasks will be run in parallel during scanning and generation tasks. (See Tasks)

Auto-detection can be enabled by setting this to zero. This will calculate the number of parallel tasks to be logical cores/4 + 1.

This setting can be used to increase/decrease overall CPU utilisation in two scenarios:

High performance 4+ core cpus.
Media files stored on remote/cloud filesystem.

Note: If this is set too high it will decrease overall performance and causes failures (out of memory).

Hardware accelerated live transcoding¶

Hardware accelerated live transcoding can be enabled by setting the FFmpeg hardware encoding setting. Stash outputs the supported hardware encoders to the log file on startup at the Info log level. If a given hardware encoder is not supported, it's error message is logged to the Debug log level for debugging purposes.

HLS/DASH streaming¶

To stream using HLS (such as on Apple devices) or DASH, the Cache path must be set. This directory is used to store temporary files during the live-transcoding process. The Cache path can be set in the System settings page.

ffmpeg arguments¶

Additional arguments can be injected into ffmpeg when generating previews and sprites, and when live-transcoding videos.

The ffmpeg arguments configuration is split into Input and Output arguments. Input arguments are injected before the input file argument, and output arguments are injected before the output file argument.

Arguments are accepted as a list of strings. Each string is a separate argument. For example, a single argument of -foo bar would be treated as a single argument "-foo bar". The correct way to pass this argument would be to split it into two separate arguments: "-foo", "bar".

Scraping¶

User Agent string¶

Some websites require a legitimate User-Agent string when receiving requests, or they will be rejected. If entered, this string will be applied as the User-Agent header value in http scrape requests.

Chrome CDP path¶

Some scrapers require a Chrome instance to function correctly. If left empty, stash will attempt to find the Chrome executable in the path environment, and will fail if it cannot find one.

Chrome CDP path can be set to a path to the chrome executable, or an http(s) address to remote chrome instance (for example: http://localhost:9222/json/version).

Authentication¶

By default, stash is not configured with any sort of password protection. To enable password protection, both Username and Password must be populated. Note that when entering a new username and password where none was set previously, the system will immediately request these credentials to log you in.

API key¶

If password protection is enabled, you may also generate an API key. An API key is used by external systems to access your stash system without needing to login first.

External systems using the API key must set the ApiKey header value to the configured API key in order to bypass the login requirement.

Logging out¶

The logout button is situated in the upper-right part of the screen when you are logged in.

Recovering from a forgotten username or password¶

Stash saves login credentials in the config.yml file. You must reset both login and password if you have forgotten your password by doing the following: * Close your Stash process * Open the config.yml file found in your Stash directory with a text editor * Delete the login and password lines from the file and save Stash authentication should now be reset with no authentication credentials.

Advanced configuration options¶

These options are typically not exposed in the UI and must be changed manually in the config.yml file.

Field	Remarks
`custom_served_folders`	A map of URLs to file system folders. See below.
`custom_ui_location`	The file system folder where the UI files will be served from, instead of using the embedded UI. Empty to disable. Stash must be restarted to take effect.
`developer_options.extra_blob_paths`	A list of alternative blob paths. These paths will be read for blob files. Blobs will not be written or deleted from these paths. Intended for developer use only.
`max_upload_size`	Maximum file upload size for import files. Defaults to 1GB.
`theme_color`	Sets the `theme-color` property in the UI.
`gallery_cover_regex`	The regex responsible for selecting images as gallery covers
`proxy`	The url of a HTTP(S) proxy to be used when stash makes calls to online services Example: https://user:password@my.proxy:8080
`no_proxy`	A list of domains for which the proxy must not be used. Default is all local LAN: localhost,127.0.0.1,192.168.0.0/16,10.0.0.0/8,172.16.0.0/12
`sequential_scanning`	Modifies behaviour of the scanning functionality to generate support files (previews/sprites/phash) at the same time as fingerprinting/screenshotting. Useful when scanning cached remote files.

The following environment variables are also supported:

Environment variable	Remarks
`STASH_SQLITE_CACHE_SIZE`	Sets the SQLite cache size. See https://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html#pragma_cache_size. Default is `-2000` which is 2MB.

Custom served folders¶

Custom served folders are served when the server handles a request with the /custom URL prefix. The following is an example configuration:

custom_served_folders:
  /: D:\stash\static
  /foo: D:\bar

With the above configuration, a request for /custom/foo/bar.png would serve D:\bar\bar.png.

The / entry matches anything that is not otherwise mapped by the other entries. For example, /custom/baz/xyz.png would serve D:\stash\static\baz\xyz.png.