Create

Summary

This page describes all the features of the Create screen and how to use them.
From this screen, the user can create a catalog of files.
It is done in 3 main steps:

1. Select the Source path: the device or directory with the files to be included in the new catalog.
2. Select options to include or exclude some particular files.
3. Select the Storage and define the catalog name, and create the catalog.

Select the Source path

There are 3 ways to select the source path of the directory with the files to be included in the new Catalog:

1. by typing the path in the text edit zone
2. by using the treeview of the file system, just expand and click on the right device or directory
3. or by clicking the button Select which will open a dialog window to help selecting the folder.

The selected path will always appear in the text edit zone, and the application will use this path to browse and catalog its contents.

Select options to include/exclude files

Choose which types of files to include in your catalog.

Enhanced File Type Filtering

Katalog now uses intelligent file type detection based on the extension that supports hundreds of file formats automatically.

How file type detection works:

• Initial detection: File types are determined by analyzing file extensions using an intelligent extension-to-type cache built from your system's MIME database
• Comprehensive support: Supports hundreds of file formats (compared to previously limited hardcoded lists)
• Future-proof: New file formats are automatically recognized as your system is updated

Accuracy note:

• File types are initially determined from the extension analysis during catalog creation. This is to maximize indexing performance.
• But there can be extension mistake or missing extensions
• To maximize accuracy, it is possible to run MIME verification on completed catalogs via the Devices page, and correct any files with misleading extensions.

File Type categories

The contents of the catalog can be limited to a particular type of files. This option will be applicable for the catalog moving forward. It can be changed later by editing the Catalog.

Type	Description	Definition	Extensions examples
All	All file types without filtering
Audio	Music, podcasts, audio recordings, and sound files	(as defined by MIME types)	MP3, FLAC, AAC, M4A, OGG, WAV, AIFF, Opus, WMA, MIDI, AMR (50+ formats)
Image	Photos, graphics, diagrams, icons, and visual content	(as defined by MIME types)	JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, TIFF, RAW, SVG, XCF, GIF, BMP (100+ formats)
Text	Documents, code files, markup, data files, and readable content.	(specific Katalog definition) Includes all files with MIME type starting with "text/" plus specific application files like PDF, Word documents, etc.	PDF, DOCX, ODT, Markdown, HTML, JSON, source code files, ebooks (100+ formats).
Video	Movies, clips, animations, and video content	(as defined by MIME types)	MP4, MKV, AVI, WebM, MOV, FLV, 3GP, OGV, M2TS (40+ formats)
Other	All other file types not covered by the above categories	(specific Katalog definition)	ZIP, RAR, EXE, DLL, ISO, application files that are not classified as Text. This includes executables, archives, and system files
None	Files for which the type could not be determined based on the extension	Files without extensions or with unknown extensions

Metadata Extraction

Choose how much metadata to extract from your files during catalog creation.
This affects cataloging speed or collection size, but provides richer file information for searches & statistics.

Available options:

• None: No metadata extraction (fastest cataloging)
• Media Basic: Extract essential metadata from images, videos, and audio files
• Media Extended: Extract comprehensive metadata including technical details
• Full Extended: Maximum metadata extraction for all supported file types

What Media Basic is extracted:

• Audio: Artist, album, track details, duration, bitrate
• Images: Dimensions, orientation
• Videos: Dimensions, Duration, codec & framerate

What Extended metadata is extracted: This mechanism is built on the KFileMetaData library, which determines the file types supported and metadata. The extracted metadata is stored as a JSON in the database.

Performance impact:

• None: Fastest option, suitable for large directories or when metadata isn't needed
• Media Basic/Extended: Moderate impact, processes only media files (images, videos, audio)
• Full Extended: Slower but most comprehensive, extracts from all supported file formats

Supported file types for metadata:

• Images: jpg, png, gif, bmp, tiff, webp, svg, heic, raw, xcf
• Videos: mp4, mkv, avi, mov, wmv, flv, webm, m4v, mpg, 3gp, ogv, vob
• Audio: mp3, wav, flac, ogg, m4a, aac, wma, opus, aiff, mid, amr

This setting applies only to this catalog and can be changed later by editing the Catalog.

Note: Metadata extraction requires readable files. Files that are corrupted or have access restrictions will be skipped without affecting the cataloging process.

File checksum

Checksum SH256 can be calculated during indexing for Duplicate/Difference Search. ⚠️ It is a much longer process than other indexing option as it reads ALL of the data to compute the checksums. Like file metadata, the option can be selected at catalog creation or changed later, and when interrupting the process, the calculated checksum are saved and the next update will resume for remaining files. The files checkum can be used as a duplicate search option or as a difference search option.

Include Hidden files

Hidden files are not included by default, but this options enables to include them.
This option will be applicable for the catalog moving forward.
It can be changed later by editing the Catalog.

Global Parameters panel

The Global Parameters panel groups settings that apply across all catalogs. It can be collapsed or expanded using the toggle button at the top of the panel.

Exclude directories (global)

note

These exclusions are global: they apply to all catalogs, both when creating new catalogs and when updating existing ones.

It is possible to exclude directories from being cataloged, both during catalog creation and updates.
Enter a path or text pattern, then click Add.
The entry is then visible in the list below.
Any entry can be removed by right-clicking on it and selecting Remove.

How exclusion works:

The exclusion uses text matching: any file or folder whose full path contains the exclusion text will be skipped. This means:

• Full path: entering /home/user/Downloads/temp will exclude that specific directory and all its contents.
• Folder name: entering node_modules will exclude every node_modules directory across all catalogs (e.g. /project1/node_modules/..., /project2/node_modules/...).
• Partial path: entering .cache will exclude directories like /home/user/.cache/ but also /home/user/.cachedata/ since the match is based on text containment.

The matching is case-sensitive.

Exclude folders (per catalog)

In addition to global exclusions, it is possible to define excluded folders that apply only to the catalog being created.

• Enter a folder path manually, or browse to it using the Pick button.
• Click Add to add it to the pending list.
• Remove any entry by right-clicking on it and selecting Remove.

The per-catalog exclusions are saved with the catalog once creation completes. They are applied in addition to global exclusions — a folder skipped by either rule will not be indexed.

This option can be changed later by editing the Catalog.

Define & Create the catalog

Select the Storage device

A Catalog shall be associated with a Storage physical device, to facilitate later search or enable statistics.
By default, Katalog pre-creates a default Storage device, the local disk.
This can be updated later in the Devices virtual tree screen.
If you need a different and new Storage for this catalog, click Add Storage, and add one using the Devices or the Storage screens.

This choice will be applicable for the catalog moving forward.
It can be changed later by editing the Catalog.

Enter a Name

Enter a name for your catalog.
Duplicate names are currently not allowed.

The button Generate can create a name based on the folder path, replacing slashes / by underscore _.

Create the catalog

When ready, click the button Create Catalog to save the catalog itself and start the process of cataloging the contents of the path recursively (all sub-directories will be included).

Once the process is completed,

• A message confirms the creation and provides the number of files and total file size of the selected folder for this catalog.
• your local drive, (a Storage device which was added automatically) was also updated, and the message provides a view of free, used, and total space:

the Devices screen will be display to show the Catalog in the device tree.

The new catalog is automatically selected in the Selection panel, ready to be used to Search for the contents.

Performance Guide

What Affects Scanning Speed?

1. Metadata Extraction (Biggest Impact: ~10× slowdown)

• Image metadata: ~2-3ms/file (reads header)
• Video metadata: ~5-15ms/file (seeks, parses container)
• Solution: Use "Media Basic" only, not "Full Extended"

2. Database Mode

• Memory mode: Faster, uses RAM
• SQLite File mode: Slower, I/O bound
• Recommendation: Use Memory for development

3. Storage Type

• SSD: ~100K files/min
• HDD: ~20-30K files/min (fragmentation matters)
• Network storage: Highly variable

4. Excluded Folders

• More exclusions = faster scanning
• Example: Exclude .cache, node_modules, etc.

5. System Load

• Parallel extraction uses 4-8 cores
• Other heavy processes will interfere

Performance Benchmarks

Files	Storage	Metadata	Time
5K	SSD	None	10s
5K	SSD	Basic	50s
95K	HDD	Basic	47s (1st) / 10s (cached)

Development

Some ideas of developments for this screen:

• catalog a cloud instance (ex: Nextcloud)
• Customize file types
• For more, see the backlog of Create development.