Media¶
In PastPaths, media means anything that isn't text — photos, scanned documents, audio recordings, films. The same file can be linked to multiple persons, events, and places, so you never need to upload an image more than once.
What formats are supported?¶
- Images — JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, TIFF
- PDF documents
- Audio — MP3, WAV
- Video — MP4
Upload media¶
There are several ways to upload:
Media → + Upload gives you an upload form where you can drag and drop files or choose from disk.
While viewing a person, you can upload an image directly — it's automatically linked to that person.
Same thing — link media directly while editing an event or place.
Metadata you can fill in¶
For each image or file, you can specify:
- Title
- Description
- Date — when was the photo taken / the document created?
- Place — where was the photo taken?
- Persons in the photo
- Linked events
- Source — if the file is a document from a parish register, point to the source
- Tags and categories
You don't need to fill in everything
The most important thing is that you upload the image — you can always fill in more later. It's better to have 200 images with just a title than 5 perfectly catalogued images and the rest in a dusty box.
Link persons to an image¶
For an image with multiple people, you can link or tag those people in the image by choosing a person from the dropdown menu (the person must already exist in the tree). You can write a short note next to each person ("grandfather in the middle, grandmother on the right, unknown in the background").
Profile pictures¶
A person can have a profile picture — the one shown in lists, the family tree, and reports. The profile picture is the same file that's in the media library; it's just a flag that says "this image represents Erik."
Searching the media library¶
List view is the default. In the media library, you can:
- Search by title and description
- Filter by type (image/document/audio/video)
- Filter by tags and categories
- Filter by date or place
Viewing¶
Click an image to see it full size. From there you can also see all the persons, events, and places linked to the image — and browse to related images.
Where are the images physically stored?¶
All uploaded files are stored in a subfolder of your PastPaths data. If you want your backup to include the images, you need to back up the entire folder — not just the database.
The on-disk filename includes the original name (plus a short random code to avoid collisions), so you can recognize the files directly in a file browser if you ever need to look manually.
→ Read more about cleaning up orphaned files
Delete media¶
When you delete an image, it's removed from every place it was linked to — persons, events, places. The file is also removed from disk.
Cannot be undone
Deleting media cannot be undone. If you think you might want the image again — export it first.
Imported images from GEDCOM¶
When you import a GEDCOM file with associated images, PastPaths tries to find and import them automatically. The program searches the same folder the GEDCOM file is in, and any subfolders.
If the image has a title and/or a note in the imported file, they're automatically filled in as the image's title and description in PastPaths.
Prepare the import folder
If the GEDCOM file comes in a zip archive — extract the entire archive to the same location before importing. That way PastPaths will find the images.