Media Gallery view

Browse your vault's videos, images, PDFs and audio in a dedicated gallery view, or embed galleries directly in your notes.

Media Gallery adds a gallery browser to Obsidian: organize your media into named libraries, switch between them with tabs, and choose the layout that fits each collection.

New in 0.9.0

• Per-library layout: every library can use Masonry, Grid or Grid (fixed ratio) independently, or inherit the global default.
• Layout selector in Settings → Libraries: pick a layout per library without changing the rest.
• Improved library settings: library rows wrap cleanly and the folder path gets its own full-width row.

Features

Galleries and libraries

• Multiple named libraries, each with its own media type and vault folder.
• Tabs to switch between libraries inside the gallery view.
• Image, video, PDF and audio galleries.
• Per-library layout override (new in 0.9.0).

Layouts

• Masonry, fixed-height grid and fixed-ratio grid.
• Global default layout plus per-library overrides.
• Masonry columns: automatic or a fixed 2–6 columns.
• Configurable masonry minimum column width and gap.
• Configurable card height for the grid modes.

Viewing

• Full-screen overlay for every media type.
• Image lightbox with zoom, pan, mouse wheel, pinch and drag.
• Built-in PDF reader with scrolling, page navigation and zoom.
• Video overlay with hover controls.
• Audio player with thumbnail strip navigation.
• Arrow navigation, Esc to close, and double-click to open a file externally.
• Choose whether files open in an Obsidian tab or with the system default app.

Thumbnails

• Automatic thumbnails for images, PDFs and audio.
• Cached in the plugin folder and loaded on demand.
• Fast low-resolution previews before the final thumbnail.
• Custom thumbnail folder: files are matched by name, so clip.pdf uses clip.png.
• Audio artwork read from file tags or from a cover image in the same folder.

Configuration

• Sort by name, modified date or size, ascending or descending.
• Configurable file extensions per media type.
• Show or hide file names.
• Toggle overlay arrows.
• Video controls, muted, autoplay and loop.
• Audio autoplay.
• English and Spanish interface.

Layout modes

Set the global layout in Settings → Appearance → Layout mode. Each library can override it in Settings → Libraries.

Installation

Via BRAT (Beta)

1. Install the BRAT plugin in Obsidian.
2. Open BRAT settings and click "Add Beta Plugin".
3. Enter this repository URL: https://github.com/RobertoJarquinRR/Media-Gallery-view
4. Enable the plugin in Obsidian's Community Plugins settings.

Via Obsidian Community Plugins

Search for "Media Gallery" in Obsidian's Community Plugins browser and install it directly.

Getting started

1. Open Settings → Media Gallery view.
2. Under General, enable Enable gallery view. This adds a ribbon icon; you can also open the view from the command palette.
3. Under Libraries, add or edit a library: name, media type, folder path and layout.
4. Open the gallery from the ribbon icon or the Open media gallery command.
5. Use the tabs at the top to switch between libraries.

If a library has no folder configured, it shows a message pointing back to Settings.

Settings reference

Viewing files

• Video: hover a card to reveal playback controls. Clicking a card opens the overlay without starting playback; use the controls to play.
• Image: click a card to open the fullscreen lightbox. Zoom with the toolbar, mouse wheel or pinch, and drag to pan while zoomed.
• PDF: click a card to open the built-in reader; pages render as you scroll. Double-click a card or a page to open the PDF in a new Obsidian tab or with the system app.
• Audio: click a card to open the built-in player; move between tracks with the overlay arrows or the thumbnail strip.
• All galleries: Esc closes the overlay, and double-clicking a card opens the file using the Open files with setting.

Code block galleries

Code block galleries are still supported for embedding media inside a note. Create a MediaGallery block with a path: and an optional type: (image, video, pdf or audio). If type: is omitted, the plugin uses the default type from settings.

```MediaGallery
path: directory/videos
type: video
```

Code block galleries use the global layout mode from Settings → Appearance. Per-library layouts only apply to the gallery view.

Code block examples

These demos show galleries embedded with code blocks. The same media types are available in the Gallery View.

Video

Images

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.13.0 or newer.
• Thumbnails are generated and PDFs are rendered locally; no external service is used.

Recommendation

For a better video playback experience, consider installing the Media Extended plugin. This only improves playback when you open a video in a separate note; the gallery itself renders videos with the default HTML5 player for performance reasons.

Roadmap

• Video, image, PDF and audio galleries
• Gallery view with multiple libraries
• Masonry, fixed-height grid and fixed-ratio grid
• Per-library layout modes
• Image and PDF zoom
• Virtualized rendering for very large libraries

Credits

PDF rendering is powered by PDF.js (Apache-2.0). Audio metadata extraction is powered by music-metadata (MIT).

License

0-BSD. See LICENSE.