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Knowledge Center

Media Indexing

The indexing service automatically scans and indexes multimedia files from shared folders in File Station. Once indexed, these files can be accessed from your DMA devices and displayed in multimedia packages such as Synology Photos, Video Station, Audio Station, Media Server, and iTunes Server.

Managing Indexed Folders

To index an existing folder or create an indexed folder:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Media Indexing.
  2. Click Indexed Folder > Create > Select, and do either below:
    • To index an existing folder: Select the desired folder on the list, and click Select.
    • To create an indexed folder: Select the parent folder on the list. Click Create folder to specify the folder name, and click OK. Then select the created folder and click Select.
  3. Select the file types (i.e. Photo, Music, and Video) to index.
  4. Click OK to begin indexing.

Note:

  • Remote folders mounted using File Station cannot be added as indexed folders.
  • External storage devices must be re-indexed every time your Synology NAS restarts.
  • You can add up to 100 indexed folders on your Synology NAS.
  • You can customize the indexed folder of Video Station in Video Station, but for Synology Photos, you cannot modify the indexed folder manually. Please refer to the documentation of Video Station and Synology Photos for details.

To edit an indexed folder:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Media Indexing.
  2. Click Indexed Folder. In the pop-up window, select the desired folder.
  3. Click Edit, and make changes to the settings.
  4. Click OK and then click Save.

To remove folder(s) from the list of indexed folders:

Removed folders will be de-indexed. The contained multimedia files will not be accessible to DMA devices and Synology's multimedia applications.

  1. Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Media Indexing.
  2. Click Indexed Folder. In the pop-up window, select the unwanted folder. To select multiple unwanted folders, press and hold Shift or Ctrl during selection.
  3. Click Delete.
  4. Click Yes and then click Save.

Note:

  • Removed folders will not be deleted from your Synology NAS.

To re-index multimedia files:

If the index structure is lost, re-indexing the indexed folders helps reconstruct the structure.

  1. Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Media Indexing.
  2. Click Re-index to index all the previously indexed folders again.

Converting Indexed Multimedia Files

To set thumbnail quality:

Thumbnails of photos and videos uploaded to Media Server or Synology Photos will be automatically generated. You can set the thumbnail quality here.

  1. Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Conversion Settings > Thumbnail quality .
  2. Choose a quality from the drop-down menu.
  3. Click Apply.

To set up conversion schedules:

You can decide when to perform the conversion to avoid system bottlenecks caused by the conversion process.

  1. Go to Control Panel > Indexing Service > Conversion Settings. .
  2. Tick Enable conversion by schedule, and then select the frequency, start time, and end time.
  3. Click Apply to save the settings. Conversion task will only run at the scheduled time.

Note:

  • Creating high-quality thumbnails will take more time.

To view thumbnail conversion progress:

  1. When photos or videos are being uploaded to Synology NAS, click the Generating Progress icon appearing on the taskbar at the top of DSM desktop.
  2. In the pop-up window, do either of the following:
    • In the Processing images/videos section, monitor the status of thumbnail creation running in the background.
    • Pause the conversion with the steps below:
      1. Choose Delay for [number] hour(s) from the drop-down menu and click Pause to pause the progress.
      2. Conversion progress will resume after the specified delay time. Alternatively, you can click Continue to resume the process immediately.
      Note: Since conversion progress requires higher CPU resources, pausing the process can save system resources for any other ongoing tasks.
  3. When the conversion process is completed, the icon at the taskbar will disappear.
Managing Indexed Folders
Converting Indexed Multimedia Files