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Add support for HEIC/HEIF, GIF, and MOV formats with FFmpeg integration #171

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Merged
SmilyOrg merged 7 commits into from
Jan 26, 2026
Merged

Add support for HEIC/HEIF, GIF, and MOV formats with FFmpeg integration #171

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969b81b
feat: add support for HEIC/HEIF, GIF, and MOV formats with FFmpeg int…
SmilyOrg Jan 26, 2026
93951d1
Initial plan
Copilot Jan 26, 2026
da05241
fix: register media MIME types in both UI+API and API-only modes
Copilot Jan 26, 2026
fd80104
fix: align Dockerfile FFmpeg version guidance with docs
Copilot Jan 26, 2026
b56e415
fix: clarify FFmpeg requirement in changelog
Copilot Jan 26, 2026
7982f4a
revert: keep MIME types in UI-only block (Windows workaround)
Copilot Jan 26, 2026
05ddae6
Fix FFmpeg guidance and changelog clarity for HEIC/HEIF/GIF/MOV suppo…
SmilyOrg Jan 26, 2026
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7 changes: 7 additions & 0 deletions .changes/unreleased/heic-support.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
---
kind: Added
body: Add HEIC/HEIF, GIF image and MOV video format support via FFmpeg
time: 2026-01-25T21:00:00Z
---

HEIC (High Efficiency Image Container), HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format), GIF, and MOV (QuickTime) files are now supported when FFmpeg is available. These formats, commonly used by iOS devices and other platforms, are decoded using FFmpeg. The extensions `.heic`, `.heif`, `.gif`, and `.mov` are now included in the default configuration, so Photofield will automatically index and display these files alongside your other media when FFmpeg is installed.
7 changes: 6 additions & 1 deletion Dockerfile
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Expand Up @@ -17,8 +17,13 @@ RUN \
-o /build/photofield .

# Runtime stage
FROM alpine:3.22
FROM alpine:3.23

# Install runtime dependencies
# - exiftool: metadata extraction
# - ffmpeg: video thumbnails, HEIC/HEIF/MOV/GIF support (requires build with HEVC/H.265 decoder + libheif; v7.0+ recommended, see docs)
# - libjpeg-turbo-utils: fast JPEG decoding via djpeg
# - libwebp: WebP encoding support
RUN apk add --no-cache exiftool ffmpeg libjpeg-turbo-utils libwebp && \
ln -s /usr/lib/libwebp.so.7 /usr/lib/libwebp.so

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9 changes: 4 additions & 5 deletions defaults.yaml
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Expand Up @@ -127,8 +127,8 @@ media:

# File extensions to index on the file system
extensions: [
".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".avif", ".bmp", ".pam", ".ppm", ".jxl", ".exr", ".cr2", ".dng",
".mp4",
".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".avif", ".bmp", ".pam", ".ppm", ".jxl", ".exr", ".cr2", ".dng", ".heic", ".heif", ".gif",
".mp4", ".mov",
]

# Used to extract dates from file names as a heuristic in case of missing or
Expand All @@ -137,11 +137,10 @@ media:
date_formats: ["20060201_150405"]
images:
# Extensions to use to understand a file to be an image
# extensions: [".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".gif"]
extensions: [".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".avif", ".bmp", ".pam", ".ppm", ".jxl", ".exr", ".cr2", ".dng"]
extensions: [".jpg", ".jpeg", ".png", ".avif", ".bmp", ".pam", ".ppm", ".jxl", ".exr", ".cr2", ".dng", ".heic", ".heif", ".gif"]

videos:
extensions: [".mp4"]
extensions: [".mp4", ".mov"]

#
# Media source configuration
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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion docs/dependencies.md
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Expand Up @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
These tools are not strictly required, but if they are installed in your system, Photofield will use them to improve performance, metadata extraction, thumbnail generation, and video previews.

- [ExifTool]: Extracts metadata from many more formats than the embedded [goexif].
- [FFmpeg]: Generates video thumbnails and previews and adds support for more image formats (even basic RAW).
- [FFmpeg]: Generates video thumbnails and previews and adds support for more image formats including HEIC/HEIF (iOS photos), MOV (QuickTime videos), and basic RAW formats. **(v7.0+ recommended)**
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Copilot AI Jan 26, 2026

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This adds a specific FFmpeg version recommendation, but the Dockerfile comment references a different version. Consider keeping version guidance consistent across the repo (or avoiding a specific version and instead documenting the required codec support for HEIC/HEIF/MOV).

Suggested change
- [FFmpeg]: Generates video thumbnails and previews and adds support for more image formats including HEIC/HEIF (iOS photos), MOV (QuickTime videos), and basic RAW formats. **(v7.0+ recommended)**
- [FFmpeg]: Generates video thumbnails and previews and adds support for more image formats including HEIC/HEIF (iOS photos), MOV (QuickTime videos), and basic RAW formats.

Copilot uses AI. Check for mistakes.
- [djpeg (libjpeg-turbo)]: Accelerates JPEG decoding of big images in cases where there are no other appropriate thumbnails available.
- [libwebp]: Enables high-performance WebP encoding via dynamic library loading. When available, the [go-libwebp] encoder can use the native libwebp dynamic shared library for faster encoding (`webp-jackdyn`) compared to pure Go implementations (`webp-jacktra`).

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4 changes: 4 additions & 0 deletions main.go
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Expand Up @@ -2292,6 +2292,10 @@ func main() {
mime.AddExtensionType(".png", "image/png")
mime.AddExtensionType(".jpg", "image/jpg")
mime.AddExtensionType(".jpeg", "image/jpeg")
mime.AddExtensionType(".heic", "image/heic")
mime.AddExtensionType(".heif", "image/heif")
mime.AddExtensionType(".gif", "image/gif")
mime.AddExtensionType(".mov", "video/quicktime")
Comment on lines +2295 to +2298
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Copilot AI Jan 26, 2026

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These new MIME registrations are inside if apiPrefix != "/" (the UI+API mode). In apiPrefix == "/" (API-only) mode they won’t run, so http.ServeFile for originals (e.g., /files/{id}) may still respond with application/octet-stream for HEIC/HEIF/GIF/MOV. Consider moving the relevant mime.AddExtensionType calls outside this conditional (or duplicating them for API-only) so content-types are correct in both modes.

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mime.AddExtensionType(".ico", "image/vnd.microsoft.icon")

uifs, err := fs.Sub(StaticFs, "ui/dist")
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