Quick Start

Assumes you’ve completed the setup wizard. If not, see First Run.

Start the engine

The engine starts paused after setup. Click Start in the header bar. If the header shows Stopping, the engine is draining; wait for active jobs to finish or use the Runtime controls to stop drain mode.

Watch the queue

Go to Jobs. Files move through: Queued → Analyzing → Encoding → Completed

Skipped files appear in the Skipped tab with a plain-English reason. A high skip rate is normal — it means files are already efficiently compressed. See Skip Decisions.

Check hardware detection

Go to Settings → Hardware. Confirm your GPU is the active backend. If you see CPU (Software) with a supported GPU, open the probe log first, then see GPU Passthrough.

On repeat boots, a valid cached hardware result may appear immediately while the full probe refreshes in the background.

See your savings

Once jobs complete, Statistics shows total space recovered, compression ratios, and a savings chart.

Key controls

Action	Where
Pause new job claims	Settings → Runtime → Pause
Drain (finish active, stop new)	Header → Stop
Cancel a job	Jobs → ⋯ → Cancel
Boost priority	Jobs → ⋯ → Boost
Trigger manual scan	Settings → Library → Scan
Change engine mode	Settings → Runtime

See also

• Alchemist for Jellyfin — pre-transcoding a Jellyfin library.
• Profiles — per-library targets.
• Scheduling — restrict encoding to off-peak windows.
• Troubleshooting — queue stuck, GPU not detected, unexpected skips.