There are several ways for Koel to discover your media files. In the most common scenario, you will have a directory on your server where you store your music files.
You can let Koel know where this directory is (the "media path") via the [web interface](#scan-via-the-web-interface) or the [CLI](../cli-commands#koel-storage-local).
:::danger Keep media out of Koel’s directory
Do NOT place your media files inside Koel’s directory. Though technically possible, doing so will make upgrading, downgrading, and reinstalling Koel much more tedious.
:::
Once the media path is set, you can scan for songs (either manually or [using a cron job](../cli-commands#command-scheduling)), configure a watcher, or upload files directly via the web interface.
With [Koel Plus](../plus/what-is-koel-plus), you can also use cloud storage services like Amazon S3 or Dropbox to store your media files. Refer to [Storage Support](../plus/cloud-storage-support) for more details.
Once set, click the "Scan" button to start the process. Koel will scan the directory and its subdirectories for audio files and add them to the database.
All popular audio formats (`.mp3`, `.ogg`, `.aac`, `.m4a`, `.opus`, and `.flac`) are supported.
## Scan Using the CLI
You can also scan from the CLI with the artisan `koel:scan` command. This method is faster, without a time or library-size limit, and provides useful feedbacks.
as the files will be uploaded into the `%media_path%/__KOEL__UPLOADS__` directory.
Depending on how big your files are, you may want to set `upload_max_filesize` and `post_max_size` in your `php.ini` correspondingly, or uploading may fail with a `Payload too large` error.
This applies even if you’re using a cloud storage, as the files will be uploaded to your server first before being sent to the cloud.
## Watch the Media Directory
You can also watch your media directory and trigger _selective_ synchronization every time there's a change to it with the help of `inotifywait`.
In order to start using the feature, follow these steps:
Now you need to set up a watcher script to run `inotifywait` and send the output to `koel:scan` artisan command. For example, you can create a sample `watch` file in Koel’s root directory with this content:
``` bash
#!/bin/bash
MEDIA_PATH=/var/www/media/
PHP_BIN=/usr/local/bin/php
inotifywait -rme move,close_write,delete --format "%e %w%f" $MEDIA_PATH | while read file; do
$PHP_BIN artisan koel:sync "${file}"
done
```
### 3. Run the Watcher in the Background
Following the above example:
``` bash
chmod +x watch
./watch
[Ctrl+z]
bg
disown -h
```
You can now verify that it works by `tail -f storage/logs/laravel.log` while making changes to your media directory, for example by adding or removing applicable files via FTP.
Starting from version v3.0.0, Koel can work seamlessly with Amazon S3 with the help of the [official Koel-AWS package](https://github.com/koel/koel-aws). This allows you to run Koel in your server and have all media files hosted on S3.
### How It Works
1. You upload media files to your S3 bucket
2. S3 sends events to a Lambda function
3. The Lambda function calls Koel’s API to sync the media into Koel’s database
4. You create a streaming request to Koel
5. Koel gets the media from S3 and streams it to you
3. Copy `.env.example` into `.env` and edit the variables there
4. Zip the whole directory's content into something like `archive.zip`
5. In AWS Lambda console, create a Lambda function with the following information:
```
Name: koel-lambda
Runtime: Node.js
Code entry type: Upload a .ZIP file (you'll upload the zip file created in step 4 here)
Handler: index.handler
Role: S3 execution role (a new window will appear, where you can just click next next and next)
Memory (MB): 128 should be fine
Timeout: 0min 10sec
VPC: "No VPC" should be fine
```
:::info AWS region
Make sure you're creating the function in the same region with `koel-bucket`.
:::
#### 3. Configure S3 to send events to Lambda
Under `koel-bucket` "Events" section, create an event with the following details:
```
Name: <Justleaveitblank>
Events: ObjectCreated(All), ObjectRemoved(All)
Prefix: <Empty>
Suffix: <Empty>
Send To: Lambda function
Lambda function: koel-lambda
```
#### 4. Configure Koel to Stream from S3
If everything works properly, you can now upload media files to the bucket, and they should appear in Koel. Now after you populate `koel-user`'s `AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID`, `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`, and `AWS_REGION` into your Koel's `.env` file, Koel will start streaming media from your S3.
