See what is inside a video folder before deciding what stays.
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VideoCull is a free, open-source Windows app for local video collections that are too large or messy to review file by file: downloaded videos, old archives and backups, external drives, screen recordings, and camera footage. It samples several frames from every video and lays them out in a grid, so you can identify clips without opening each one.
Make Keep, Delete, and Skip decisions from the grid or work through a focused keyboard queue. Play and scrub uncertain clips inside the app, add ratings or favorites, and find exact copies and visually similar videos as separate comparison groups.
The workflow stays local. Marking Delete only changes the review state. Files move to the Windows Recycle Bin when possible after you inspect and confirm the complete batch.
| Review uncertain clips | Compare likely duplicates |
|---|---|
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Demo footage shown in these screenshots includes Blender Open Movies, used under their applicable Creative Commons Attribution licenses.
VideoCull requires 64-bit Windows 10 version 22H2 (build 19045) or Windows 11. The Microsoft Store edition is installed and updated by Microsoft Store.
For a direct installation, download VideoCull.Setup.<version>.exe from GitHub Releases. It installs for the current user without administrator rights and lets you choose the install location and shortcuts. Because the direct installer is not code-signed yet, Windows may show a SmartScreen prompt on first launch; click More info, then Run anyway if you downloaded it from the official repository.
The direct-download edition checks GitHub Releases for updates. Both editions share %APPDATA%\VideoCull, including settings, review decisions, databases, and the default thumbnail cache. Run only one edition at a time and keep both updated before switching. After confirming the Store edition works, you can uninstall the direct edition without deleting the shared profile or cache.
Important
Official links: Use videocull.app for the product website, docs.videocull.app for documentation, and this GitHub repository for source and releases.
Every video gets a strip of thumbnails pulled from different points in the file. You know what you're looking at without opening anything.
- Adjustable card size (
Ctrl++/Ctrl+-) - Search by filename or path (
Ctrl+Fby default, customizable) - Group by subfolder with per-folder counts and sizes
- Filter by exact status, minimum rating, favorites, compatibility, duplicates, file size, and duration
- Sort by name, size, duration, date, rating, resolution, or FPS
- Codec, resolution, FPS, favorite, rating, and compatibility badges
Shift-click batch selection with range selection, Keep, Delete, Skip, Reset, Clear, and Regenerate Thumbnails actions- Right-click quick actions for videos and folders, including reveal/copy-path, status changes, and thumbnail regeneration
- Per-folder Review button to scope review mode to one folder
- Drag and drop folder opening, multi-directory sessions
- Recent directories with timestamps, stale-entry auto-cleanup
- Privacy screen toggle (
Shift+Esc)
Fullscreen, one at a time, keyboard first.
- Thumbnail strip with dynamic aspect ratio
- In-app player with scrubbing, playback speed, bookmarks, and global mute
- Ratings and favorites directly on the current video
- Review summary with pending counts and delete totals
- Next-undecided navigation for skipping videos you've already handled
- Direct card opening that starts on the chosen video while preserving the filtered navigation scope
- External player handoff for files the built-in player should not play
- Preview and playback layouts adapt to normal, maximized, and high-resolution displays
- Undo any decision before you commit the final delete
Find likely duplicates across all loaded videos or just the current filtered view, then work through them with suggested keepers instead of starting from scratch.
- Exact-copy detection with full-file SHA-256 hashing, whatever the filenames say
- Two visual comparison methods: pHash (strict, few false positives) and visual similarity (catches more alternate encodes and resized copies, with more false positives)
- Adjustable similarity threshold and sample count; results below roughly 95% deserve careful review
- Optional mirrored-copy comparison
- Suggested keeper priority based on resolution, bitrate, duration, FPS, and file size
- Protection rules for videos already marked Keep or Skip
- Manual keeper overrides and "Not a match" ignored-pair handling that survives reruns
- Right-click actions for duplicate rows and groups, including keeper selection, exclusion, and group dismissal
- Optional "run after scan" mode for duplicate detection
- Never deletes automatically: selected copies are marked Delete and wait for the normal confirmed delete action
Frames are compared at matching points in each file, so trimmed versions and clips cut from a longer video are not detected.
- Configurable frame count: 1, 2, 4, 6, or 9 thumbnails per video (default: 6)
- Intro skip: first frame offset by a configurable delay to avoid black fades (default: 3s)
- Parallel processing: RAM and CPU-aware auto-detect, or set manually up to 32 processes
- Cached: already-processed videos are skipped on rescan when their thumbnail set is complete
- Hardware acceleration: optional GPU decoding (beta)
- Unattended runs: the PC stays awake while VideoCull processes, and Actions › When Processing Finishes can put it to sleep or shut it down once a long run is done
- Rebuild warning: changing thumbnails per video warns when existing thumbnail sets may need to be rebuilt
Progress lives in SQLite databases under the configured cache location.
- Three location modes: Centralised (default), Per-drive, Distributed (
.videocullnext to your files) - Old flat-root DBs and legacy
.video-cull-cache.jsonfiles are migrated automatically on first scan - Status, ratings, favorites, bookmarks, metadata, and thumbnails survive rescans
- Cache location changes can migrate existing cache data instead of forcing a fresh start
- Cache and thumbnail files for deleted videos are cleaned up with the delete action
- Stale-cache cleanup and empty-folder cleanup are opt-in maintenance actions
Generate an HTML report from Settings or the app menu, scoped to all loaded videos or just the current filtered results, grouped by folder with separate Keep/Delete/Pending/Skipped sections.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl + O |
Open folder |
Ctrl + F |
Search loaded videos (customizable) |
F5 |
Rescan |
Ctrl + Z |
Undo |
Ctrl + Backspace |
Send marked videos to Recycle Bin |
Ctrl + E |
Reveal in Explorer |
Ctrl + + / Ctrl + - |
Larger or smaller cards |
Ctrl + K |
Find a command, folder or video |
F11 |
Toggle fullscreen |
? |
Keyboard shortcuts reference |
Shift + Esc |
Toggle privacy screen |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
K |
Keep |
D |
Mark for deletion |
S |
Skip |
Z |
Undo |
Space |
Play / pause |
Left / Right |
Previous / next video, or scrub 5s while playing |
Tab |
Next undecided video |
Enter |
Play in-app |
Ctrl + Enter |
Open in external player |
B |
Drop bookmark |
[ / ] |
Playback speed down / up |
Esc |
Stop / exit review |
Review shortcuts are customizable in Settings.
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Cache location | Centralised / Per-drive / Distributed | Centralised |
| Thumbnails per video | 1, 2, 4, 6, 9 | 6 |
| Default card scale | 0.5x - 2.0x | 1.0x |
| Default sort | Name / Size / Date / Duration / Rating / Resolution / FPS | Name |
| Group by folder | On / Off | On |
| Keep Review playback controls visible | On / Off | Off |
| Parallel FFmpeg processes | Auto (RAM + CPU aware) / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 24 / 32 | Auto |
| Limit each FFmpeg process to 1 CPU thread | On / Off | On |
| Intro skip delay | 0 - 60 seconds | 3s |
| Hardware acceleration | On / Off | Off |
| Keep the PC awake while processing | On / Off | On |
| Auto-clean stale cache after scan | On / Off | Off |
| Remove empty folders after deleting videos | On / Off | Off |
| Auto updates | On / Off | On |
| Feature toggles | Ratings, favorites | On |
| Keybindings | Any key or combination | K / D / S / Z / Space |
Duplicate detection also has its own settings tab with options for comparison method, similarity threshold, sample count, scope, keeper priority, ignored matches, sampling windows, and retry behavior.
VideoCull generates thumbnails and metadata with FFmpeg, so it can inspect many common video formats.
The built-in player is intended for compatible web-playable media such as .mp4, .webm, .mov, .mkv, .m4v, and .ogv when the underlying codecs are supported. Legacy or unsupported formats such as .avi, .wmv, .asf, .flv, .ts, .mts, and .mpeg open in your default system player instead.
- Initial scanning can be very slow on some cloud-mounted drives, confirmed on mounted Google Drive setups. See issue #2.
- Duplicate review does not detect clips cut from a longer video or trimmed versions of the same file.
- VideoCull is Windows-only.
Found a bug or something that is not obvious in the workflow? Open an issue. Reports from large, messy collections are especially useful.
Requires Node.js 24 LTS and npm 11.19.0 or newer. npm ci also downloads the pinned FFmpeg and FFprobe build into vendor/ffmpeg and checks its SHA-256.
If npm --version is below 11.19.0, run npm install --global npm@11.19.0 before npm ci.
git clone https://github.com/StippieDot/VideoCull.git
cd VideoCull
npm ci
npm run dev| Command | Description |
|---|---|
npm run dev |
Vite + Electron with hot reload |
npm run test:ci |
IPC contract check, test TS compile, and full coverage run |
npm run test:e2e |
Build the renderer and run the Electron Playwright regression flows |
npm run package |
Full build + Windows installer (NSIS) |
Development sessions use %APPDATA%\VideoCull-dev, so local settings and cache do not mix with the packaged app. See Building from source for Store packaging, native-module rebuilds, and the full command list.
Electron - React - Video.js - FFmpeg - better-sqlite3 - Zustand - TypeScript - Vite
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0, with an additional permission for extensions that lets separate extension modules use other license terms. VideoCull itself stays open source.
VideoCull bundles FFmpeg and FFprobe, licensed under the GNU GPL version 3 or later. They are built from source in VideoCull-FFmpeg, whose releases include the complete corresponding source. Settings › About › Third-party notices lists every bundled component and its license.