First steps

Add your first images

Two ways in:

  • Point it at a folder. The default gallery reads /gallery (whatever host folder you mounted there). Copy files in, and the watcher indexes them within seconds. If you copied a lot at once, or turned the watcher off, click the sync icon at the top right to walk the folder in one pass. Subfolders are fine; monbooru keeps your folder structure and shows it as a tree in the sidebar.
  • Upload from the browser. Open Inbox in the top menu. A drop zone sits at the top of the grid: drag files in or pick them with Choose files. Accepted formats are JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, MP4, WebM, and CBZ/ZIP comic archives.

Either way, new images land in the inbox, a holding area for things you have not reviewed yet. The same file added twice (even under two different paths) is recognized by its checksum and stored as one image.

The UI at a glance

  • Gallery grid. The home page. Thumbnails of whatever the current search matches; with an empty search, everything. Hovering a video or animated GIF plays a short preview. Check a few thumbnails and a batch bar appears with actions that apply to the selection.
  • Search bar. Top of the page. Type tags and filters, for example red_hair -sketch rating:general. The full syntax is in Searching.
  • Sidebar. Left of the grid: the tags present on the current page of results, top sources, your folder tree, and saved searches. Everything in it is clickable and narrows the search.
  • Detail page. Click a thumbnail. The image with its tags, an editor to add more, metadata (size, folder, sources, collections), and panels for AI generation data, similar entries and related images. Arrow keys walk to the previous and next result.
  • Footer. Shows the active gallery, library counts, and the SFW ceiling: click a rating level (sfw, sensitive, questionable, explicit) to hide anything ranked above it. Handy when someone is looking over your shoulder. See Tags for how ratings work.

Manga and comic archives

A CBZ or ZIP archive of images is ingested as a single item, like an image; its thumbnail is the first page. The detail page for an archive adds Open in reader (a built-in page-by-page reader) and See all pages (a thumbnail grid of every page; click one to jump there in the reader). If the archive carries a ComicInfo.xml, its series, author and other fields show in a read-only metadata panel.

More galleries

Everything so far happens in the default gallery. A gallery is an independent library: its own folder, database, tags and saved searches. If you want a second one (say, photos separate from art), mount another folder into the container and add it under Settings -> Galleries. Details in Galleries.

Moving files

Files can be reorganized without leaving the app: Move image on the detail page (shortcut m) moves the file to another folder inside the gallery, creating subfolders as needed, and the Actions chooser and batch bar carry the same Move for a whole search or selection. The folder tree in the sidebar follows.

Cheatsheets in the app

  • Type system: in the search bar to open a dropdown listing every search filter, with drill-down hints for each one.
  • Press ? on any page for the keyboard shortcuts overlay. The UI is fully keyboard-drivable, from grid navigation to batch actions.
  • The help link in the footer opens this documentation.