Watchfolders

A Watchfolder points Exaplay at a folder (local or on a server share) and keeps a Playlist in sync with its contents automatically. Drop new media into the folder and Exaplay picks it up on the next scan and adds it to the target composition — ideal for signage, "hot folder" content delivery, and installations where content is updated by someone who never opens the editor.

Watchfolders are managed from the File Browser → Watchfolders tab.

New in 3.2.

How It Works

1. You register a watchfolder and (optionally) point it at a Playlist composition.
2. On every scan interval Exaplay lists the folder, keeps only supported media files, and imports the ones that are fully written and stable.
3. New stable files are appended to the target Playlist with your chosen per-element playback settings; the File Browser view is refreshed either way.

Polling only runs while at least one watchfolder is enabled, so an idle project does no background scanning.

Add a Watchfolder

Open File Browser → Watchfolders and click Add Watchfolder. The dialog has three steps.

1 — Choose a folder

Browse the server/host file system (breadcrumb navigation), open a folder with a single click, and confirm it with double-click or the Select This Folder button. The selected path is shown at the top of the dialog.

2 — Options

Option	Description
Populate playlist with files from	The target Playlist composition new files are added to. Choose Filebrowser refresh only (no auto-add) to refresh the browser view without auto-adding to any composition.
Label	Optional display name (auto-filled from the folder name).
Scan speed	How often the folder is scanned: Fast (5 s), Normal (15 s), Slow (60 s), or a Custom value (1–3600 s).
Start watching immediately	Enable the watchfolder as soon as it is saved.

3 — Playback settings

These apply to every element the watchfolder adds:

Setting	Description
Use original length for videos	Play each video for its full duration. Turn off to set a fixed Play each video for duration (seconds).
Play each image for	How long each still image is shown (seconds).
Crossfade between elements	Add an automatic crossfade between consecutive elements.
Loop elements	Loop the generated playlist.

Click Add Watchfolder to save.

Managing Watchfolders

Each watchfolder appears as a row showing its status dot, name, folder path, target composition (or Filebrowser only), and scan interval.

Action	Button
Pause / Resume	⏸ / ▶ — temporarily stop or restart scanning
Refresh now	🔄 — force an immediate scan without waiting for the interval
Edit	✏️ — change the folder, target, interval, or playback settings
Remove	🗑 — stop monitoring and delete the watchfolder

Watchfolder configurations are saved both to the browser's local storage and to the .vpp project file, so they travel with the project.

Supported Files & Partial-Write Handling

Only supported media files are imported — common video formats plus the HAP family (.mp4, .mov, .hap, .hapq, .hapy, …) and still images (.png, .jpg, …).

Watchfolders are designed for folders that are written to while Exaplay is watching (network copies, renders, downloads), so they will not import a file that is still being written:

• Temporary / in-progress files are ignored. Files with temp extensions such as .partial, .tmp, .crdownload (a partial copy or download) are never imported.
• Size-stability debounce. A newly seen file is only imported once it has a non-zero size that is unchanged since the previous scan. A large file still being copied keeps growing between scans and is held back until it settles, which avoids importing a half-written clip. Files that already exist when watching starts are treated as stable.

Tip: match the scan speed to how your content arrives — a slower interval (e.g. 60 s) gives large network copies more time to finish between scans, while a faster interval makes new content appear sooner.

Related

• Playlist — the composition type watchfolders populate.
• File Browser — where the Watchfolders tab lives.
• Media Playback — supported codecs.