EmbyDesk – Desktop Client for Emby (Qt6 + Go Backend)

A cross‑platform desktop application for browsing, exporting, and analyzing your Emby media library. EmbyDesk combines a Go backend (via cgo) with a Qt6.11 C++ UI, offering a fast, native, and offline‑capable experience.

Features

🧭 Architecture

• Backend written in Go, using a cgo layer to expose the JBEmbyAPI shared library → see the corresponding JBEmbyAPI project
• Frontend written in modern C++, built with Qt 6.11
• Clean separation of concerns: Go handles API + data, C++ handles UI + presentation
• EmbyDesk uses separate data models for each collection type, ensuring clean separation, strong typing, and predictable behavior across the UI and export layers.

📚 Supported Collection Types

EmbyDesk supports all major Emby media categories:

• Movies
• TV Shows (Series) – Series – Seasons – Episodes
• Home Videos
• Music Videos
• Music – Albums – Tracks

🧭 UI & Navigation

Hierarchical Views:

• Tree view for Music (Album → Track)
• Tree view for Series (Series → Seasons → Episodes)

Detail Sheets - Dedicated detail pages for every media type:

• Movie
• Series
• Season
• Episode
• Home Video
• Music Video
• Album
• Track

Each sheet displays metadata and images.

📤 Export Capabilities

Excel Export

• Export any collection (movies, series, music, etc.) to Excel
• Clean, structured spreadsheets for further analysis or archiving

SQLite Export (Offline Mode)

• Export Emby metadata to a local SQLite database
• Includes:
  • Metadata fields
  • Cover images
  • Captured frame images
• Designed for fast offline browsing

🧩 Database Model

EmbyDesk uses a deliberately simple SQLite schema:

• No relationship tables
• Flat, predictable structure
• Optimized for:
  • Fast lookups
  • Easy debugging
  • Straightforward offline usage

🙏 Credits & Acknowledgements

• Emby - For providing the API structures and documentation.
• nlohmann/json - For the excellent single‑header JSON library used in the C++ layer.
• Daniel Nicoletti (dantti) and Jay Two (j2Doll) for QXlsx.
• Copilot Assistance - Copilot was especially helpful with:
  • Loading the Go shared library and registering exported functions
  • Generating JSON parser functions for the C++ data structures
  • Supporting SQLite syntax

Screenshots

Welcome screen

Preferences

Offline mode browsing movies

Offline mode browsing series

Offline mode browsing music

Offline mode browsing home videos

Popup "Dump Emby Collections"

Updates

2026-05-21:

• Added "people" for homevideos
• Display runtime in seconds for small clips (< 1 min)

2026-05-22:

• Fixed "Overview" for homevideos not being displayed