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Setup
Storage and Databases

Storage and Databases

Outtake keeps two kinds of data: the files it renders, and a database of clips, profiles, settings, and sessions. Neither lives with your media. The media mount is read-only, and Outtake never writes to it.

Files

By default files go on the local filesystem under OUTTAKE_STORAGE_PATH, which is /data/output in the Docker images:

DirectoryHolds
clips/Video clips, and the SDR versions of clips that keep HDR
gifs/GIFs
screenshots/Screenshots
previews/Previews from the export form. Outtake keeps the recent ones and deletes the rest

Every render writes to a temporary file beside its destination and moves it into place only when FFmpeg succeeds, so a failed or canceled render, including a regenerate, never leaves a broken file behind. Temporary files a crash left behind are swept on the next start.

S3

To keep files in an S3-compatible store instead, such as SeaweedFS, RustFS, MinIO, or AWS S3, set:

OUTTAKE_STORAGE_BACKEND=s3
OUTTAKE_S3_ENDPOINT=https://s3.example.com
OUTTAKE_S3_BUCKET=outtake
OUTTAKE_S3_REGION=us-east-1
OUTTAKE_S3_ACCESS_KEY=...
OUTTAKE_S3_SECRET_KEY=...
OUTTAKE_S3_USE_PATH_STYLE=true

FFmpeg needs local files, so OUTTAKE_STORAGE_PATH is still used as a scratch directory: renders are written there and uploaded, and a file is downloaded there again when you play or download it and it is not present locally. Path-style URLs are on by default, which SeaweedFS and RustFS expect. Turn them off for a store that wants virtual-hosted URLs.

Database

SQLite

The default is a SQLite database at OUTTAKE_DATABASE_PATH, which is /data/outtake.db in the Docker images. It needs no setup. Keep the whole /data volume together, because SQLite also writes outtake.db-wal and outtake.db-shm beside the database.

Postgres

For Postgres, set:

OUTTAKE_DATABASE_BACKEND=postgres
OUTTAKE_DATABASE_URL=postgres://outtake:secret@db.example.com:5432/outtake?sslmode=require

OUTTAKE_DATABASE_URL is a standard connection string. Outtake creates and upgrades its tables itself when it starts, on either database, so there is nothing to run by hand.

Backups

With the defaults, everything Outtake keeps is in the /data volume: back it up as a whole, while Outtake is stopped. With S3 or Postgres, back up the bucket and the database the way you back up anything else on them.

ConfigurationKubernetes