User Guide

Guides for browsing, organizing, searching, managing metadata and access, and operating Cove.

Choose where to begin

The User Guide covers day-to-day work after Cove is running: browsing and playing media, finding things quickly, organizing content, managing metadata workflows, controlling access, and keeping the installation healthy.

On desktop, browse every topic in the sidebar or narrow the list with search. On mobile, focus the search field to browse the same formatted topic list.

For a new installation, begin with Get Started instead. It connects the supported installation paths, shared first-run setup, first scan, and introductory library tutorials.

• Get Started
• Your first hour with Cove

Guided tutorials

Use these focused tutorials individually after first-run setup, or follow them in order from Your first hour with Cove.

• Scan your first library
• Explore your library
• Find anything
• Organize a collection

Browse and play

• Media types
• Use list pages
• Use detail pages
• Use playback and the timeline
• Browse performers
• Browse studios
• Use feed, vertical, and graph views

Find and organize things

• Search and filters
• Combine filters
• Filter by related performers
• Use saved filters
• Organize your library
• Dynamic groups
• Segments and compilations
• Custom fields
• JSON custom fields

Customize Cove

• Keyboard shortcuts
• Customize keyboard shortcuts
• Customize themes and layout
• Discover and install extensions

Manage metadata and access

• Metadata provenance
• Providers, scrapers, and downloaders
• Users, roles, and permissions

Operate Cove

• Backups, migrations, and upgrades
• Troubleshooting