Skip to content

Getting started

Add the following repository URL in Dashboard > Plugins > Repositories:

https://geiserx.github.io/smart-covers/manifest.json

Then install SmartCovers from the plugin catalog and restart Jellyfin.

From Releases

  1. Download smart-covers_<version>.zip from the latest release. The version is the tag without the v, for example 7.4.0.0.
  2. Extract the contents into your Jellyfin plugins directory: 
    <jellyfin-config>/plugins/SmartCovers_<version>/
    The zip contains SmartCovers.dll (with the CBZ/CBR archive reader merged in), PDFtoImage.lib (the PDFtoImage managed library, shipped with a .lib extension so Jellyfin's plugin scanner skips it), native PDFium libraries for all platforms under runtimes/<rid>/native/, and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.
  3. Restart Jellyfin.

Turn it on per library

Jellyfin does not switch a new image fetcher on by itself, and a library you created before the install keeps its old fetcher list. Open Dashboard > SmartCovers, click Enable on each library, then Refresh Images. The same switch is in each library's own settings under Image fetchers, as SmartCovers.

The SmartCovers settings page: three green status lines, the online-fetch box checked, and a Libraries table with three libraries enabled and a Refresh Images button on each

Check that it works

  • The SmartCovers page shows three green lines: PDF rendering available, ffmpeg detected, online cover fetching enabled. An orange line names what is missing and every other format keeps working.
  • Covers appear on the tiles while the refresh runs. Open the library and reload after a minute.
  • Books and audiobooks still blank in enabled libraries are retried by Refresh items missing a cover (Dashboard > Scheduled Tasks, category SmartCovers) every night at 04:00; run it by hand from that page to retry now.

Requirements

Dependency Required For Notes
Jellyfin 10.11+ All features Minimum supported server version
ffmpeg Audio covers Bundled with Jellyfin Docker images
Bookshelf plugin v13+ EPUB covers Recommended; handles standard EPUB covers as primary provider

PDF rendering requires no external dependencies: the native PDFium library is bundled with the plugin for all platforms (Linux x64/arm64/musl, macOS x64/arm64, Windows x64/x86/arm64). CBZ/CBR extraction is pure managed code (SharpCompress, merged into SmartCovers.dll) and works everywhere with no external dependencies either.