[Feature Request] New storage system: Thumbnails

Feature
1

Github issue link

What is your current rclone version (output from rclone version)?

Latest v1.69.0

What problem are you are trying to solve?

Thumbnail generation across multiple different devices and architectures.

How do you think rclone should be changed to solve that?

A thumbnails storage system should be created. This would help eliminate the technical debt that requires multiple projects using rclone from having to reinvent the wheel every time they want thumbnails for explorers that do not support it natively.

The new storage system would be an overlay which look like so for configuration:

[thumbnails]
type = thumbnails
remote = S3-REMOTE-EXAMPLE:
thumbnails_remote = S3-REMOTE-EXAMPLE:.thumbnails
thumbnails_cache = /path/to/local/cached/location
thumbnail_change_detection =  [ Methods: hash, date, size ]
thumbnail_generate_method = [ Methods: onaccess, view, list ]
thumbnails_generate_extensions_whitelist = [ Methods: Default: all | Or Specify List: mpg,avi,pdf,png,jpeg,jpg,etc ]
thumbnails_generate_extensions_blacklist = [ Methods: Default: NONE | Or specify List: bmp,heic ]

The overlay system would essentially just passthrough whatever underlying remote you are accessing. But as a byproduct thumbnails are created and stored into the specified thumbnails cache.

The top layer file storage system making use of this rclone storage can then access the thumbnails from the storage.

Extensions can be specified on which files thumbnails should be generated for via whitelist or blacklist. This allows for enhancing the thumbnails overlay over time by adding new extension generation features. This will also enable the end user to also determine less extensions as to specify less resource utilization on extensions that are not needed.

A positive of this approach is for systems that have limited bandwidth capabilities, thumbnails can be pre-generated from a machine with allocated resources. Smaller end-devices such as cellphones can then take advantage of the pre-generated thumbnails (such as videos).

1 Like
2

Pardon my ignorance but could you give me some real life example where it would be useful?

3

A good example would be rclone browser. The GUI could tap into the thumbnails cache and show thumbnails next to the file without needing to enable file system mounting or rclone serve to provide this visual enhancement.

The GUI also will not have to download the full file or need to regenerate the thumbnail when moving between devices.

Currently the only method to show thumbnails is to either download the file in full and generate a thumbnail. Or to rclone mount and allow the native file Explorer to use vfs cache for chunked reading.

Aditionally this would allow iOS and Android apps which are more restricted to file system features to show and store thumbnails without having to rely on VFS for chunked downloading/streaming. Which may be a benefit for services using librclone.

4

Thx. Quite theoretical requirement then:) I think it is good to have it on the radar and hopefully somebody who really needs it will come up with a solution.

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