Set up external tools

Importing some formats requires external tools.

Feature	What to install
Importing GIFs and videos	FFmpeg
Importing PDFs	Poppler
AutoTag and similar-image search	AutoTag (see AutoTag)

After installing, press “Detect FFmpeg” or “Detect Poppler” in the Desktop settings (FFmpeg under “Media”, Poppler under “Poppler”) to recognize them.

macOS

Use Homebrew to install FFmpeg and Poppler. If it isn’t installed, run xcode-select --install in Terminal, then run the install command from the Homebrew page.

FFmpeg

1. Run in Terminal:

   brew install ffmpeg

2. Press “Detect FFmpeg” in Desktop settings under “Media”
3. If it doesn’t appear, use the folder icon to select /opt/homebrew/bin/ffmpeg (/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg on Intel Macs)

Poppler

1. Run in Terminal:

   brew install poppler

2. Press “Detect Poppler” in settings under “Poppler”
3. If it doesn’t appear, select /opt/homebrew/bin/pdftocairo (/usr/local/bin/pdftocairo on Intel Macs)

Windows

First, create a place for the tools. Paste %APPDATA%\Caramel Board into the Explorer address bar to open it, then create a tools folder inside.

FFmpeg

1. Download ffmpeg-release-essentials.zip from gyan.dev FFmpeg builds
2. Right-click the zip → “Extract All” to extract it
3. Rename the extracted folder (the level that contains bin) to ffmpeg and move it into the tools folder
4. Press “Detect FFmpeg” in settings under “Media”. If it doesn’t appear, select tools\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe

Final layout:

%APPDATA%
└─ Caramel Board
   └─ tools
      └─ ffmpeg
         └─ bin
            └─ ffmpeg.exe

Poppler

1. Download the latest Release-xx.xx.x.zip from poppler-windows Releases
2. Extract the zip, rename the poppler-xx.xx.x folder to poppler, and move it into the tools folder
3. Press “Detect Poppler” in settings under “Poppler”. If it doesn’t appear, select tools\poppler\Library\bin\pdftocairo.exe

After installing

If you have files that already failed to import, import them again. If videos or PDFs still won’t import, go to Troubleshooting.