MediaTab — a Vencord plugin

A Media button in the Discord channel header that opens a browsable, searchable, filterable gallery of every image, video, GIF, file and link in the channel, the DM, or the whole server. Like the media tab on Discord mobile, or a Twitter profile's Media tab — but with real filters and a details view.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  #general                   📞  📹  📌  👥  🖼️   [ Search... ]   │  ← the button
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Install — one command

You need Vencord installed first. Then paste one line and wait a couple of minutes.

Windows — Command Prompt or PowerShell:

powershell -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/destination/mediatab/main/get.ps1 | iex"

macOS / Linux — Terminal:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/destination/mediatab/main/get.sh | bash

It installs anything missing, downloads MediaTab, builds it against the latest Vencord, closes Discord, and hooks everything up.

Then in Discord:

1. Settings → Vencord → Plugins
2. Search MediaTab, switch it on
3. Press Ctrl+R / Cmd+R

A picture icon appears at the top right of any chat, next to the pin.

To update, run the exact same command again. It pulls the latest MediaTab and the latest Vencord and rebuilds both.

Prefer to do it by hand?

git clone https://github.com/destination/mediatab.git
cd mediatab
./scripts/setup.sh       # clones Vencord, installs deps, builds
# quit Discord completely, then:
./scripts/install.sh

Update later with ./scripts/update.sh.

Is piping a script into a shell safe?

It's the same pattern rustup, Homebrew and nvm use, and the safety comes from being able to read what you're running. Both scripts are short and deliberately kept that way — open get.sh or get.ps1 and read them first. They need no admin rights and never modify Discord's own files.

If you'd rather not pipe, use the by-hand steps above — they do exactly the same thing.

Details below; if anything goes wrong, jump to Troubleshooting.

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Table of contents

• What it does
• Requirements
• Install
• Using it
• Settings
• Updating
• Uninstalling
• Troubleshooting
• Project layout
• Further docs

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What it does

Three ways in

Entry point	Where	Default
Header button	Channel header, next to the pin / member-list icons	on
Context menu	Right-click a channel, thread, group DM or user → View Media	on
Chat bar button	Next to the message box	off (enable in settings)

Filter tabs — All · Images · Videos · GIFs · Audio · Files · Links

Filters

• Free-text search over message content
• Author — multi-select, searchable; pre-populated with the channel's participants plus everyone found in the results so far
• Sort — newest first, oldest first, or most relevant
• Scope — this channel, or the entire server (guild channels only)
• Date range — from / to, using native date pickers
• File extension — e.g. png, mp4, pdf
• Pinned only

Three layouts

• Grid — pick how many per row (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10) straight from the toolbar, or "Fit to width" with an adjustable tile size. Defaults to 4 per row.
• List — thumbnail plus name, author, channel, timestamp, type and size
• Details — a sortable table; click any column header to sort what's loaded by name, author, type, size, channel or date

Sorting is newest first by default, everywhere.

Per-item actions (on hover)

• ↗ Jump — closes the browser and jumps to the message in the channel
• 🔗 Copy link — copies the media URL
• ⤓ Download — saves the file

Selection and bulk actions — click the checkbox on any tile or row to enter selection mode, then Download all or Copy links for everything selected.

Viewing — clicking an image, GIF, video or sticker opens Discord's own lightbox, loaded with every viewable item in the current result set, so the arrow keys walk through the whole gallery. Files and links open externally.

Other details

• Spoilered media is blurred until hovered (toggleable)
• Infinite scroll, plus an explicit Load more button
• Thumbnails are served resized through media.discordapp.net, so a grid of 200 items doesn't download 200 full-resolution originals
• Rate limits and "server still indexing" responses are retried automatically with the delay Discord asks for

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Requirements

• macOS, Windows or Linux desktop Discord. This is a Vencord plugin; it cannot run on Discord in a normal browser tab.
• Vencord already installed the normal way, from vencord.dev/download. These scripts add a plugin to an existing install; they don't install Vencord for you.
• Node.js 22 or newer and git. On Windows, run the commands in Git Bash rather than PowerShell.
• Custom plugins require building Vencord from source. See below.

Sharing it with someone else: docs/SHARING.md.

"Can't I just drop a file in?"

No — and it's worth understanding why, because it's the single most common misconception about Vencord.

Vencord compiles plugins into its bundle. Its whole architecture works by rewriting Discord's own JavaScript as those modules load, and the rewrite rules have to be present in the bundle before Discord starts. There is no runtime plugin loader to drop a file into. Settings → Vencord → Plugins is a list of what was compiled in, with on/off switches — not a folder you can add to.

Drop-in plugin files are BetterDiscord's model. Different mod, different plugin API; this plugin would have to be rewritten for it.

So the only supported route is building Vencord from source once. The good news:

• Your settings, themes and enabled plugins are untouched. They live in Vencord's data folder, separate from the build, and scripts/install.sh backs them up anyway before doing anything.
• It takes about two minutes and is fully reversible with scripts/uninstall.sh.
• The trade-off: Vencord's built-in auto-updater no longer manages your install. You update with ./scripts/update.sh, which pulls the latest Vencord, rebuilds, and re-checks the plugin against Discord's current code.

Is this allowed?

Client mods are against Discord's Terms of Service, though there are no known cases of anyone being banned for using one. This plugin is read-only, automates nothing, and makes the same requests through the same code path as Discord's own search box. The honest, full version — including why "undetectable" isn't a promise anyone can make — is in docs/RULES-AND-RISK.md. Worth five minutes before you install.

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Install

Vencord must already be installed the normal way. Then:

git clone https://github.com/destination/mediatab.git
cd mediatab

# 1. clone Vencord, install deps, copy the plugin in, build
./scripts/setup.sh

# 2. quit Discord completely first — Cmd+Q, or tray icon → Quit
./scripts/install.sh

Then in Discord:

1. Settings → Vencord → Plugins
2. Search MediaTab, toggle it on
3. Reload Discord with Ctrl+R / Cmd+R — Vencord's patches only apply on a fresh load

A media icon appears in the channel header. Done.

What install.sh actually does

Nothing to Discord itself. Discord's app.asar is already a two-line shim the official Vencord installer left behind:

require("<vencord data dir>/dist/patcher.js")

Platform	Vencord data dir
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Vencord
Linux	~/.config/Vencord (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Vencord)
Windows	%APPDATA%\Vencord

install.sh finds this automatically. Override with VENCORD_DIR=... for an unusual install such as Vesktop or a flatpak.

So there's nothing to re-patch. The script simply makes that dist folder a symlink to this checkout's build output:

• Discord's app bundle is never touched
• The stock prebuilt Vencord is moved aside to dist-stock-<timestamp>, not deleted
• Your settings are copied to a timestamped backup first
• Rebuilds go live immediately — ./scripts/build.sh then Cmd+R, no reinstall

It also turns off Vencord's auto-updater, because that updater replaces dist/ with a downloaded release, which would wipe out this build. Update with ./scripts/update.sh instead — see Updating.

On Windows without Developer Mode, symlinks aren't available and the script falls back to copying the build into place. Everything works the same, with one difference: rebuilds are not automatically live, so re-run install.sh after each build. The script tells you which of the two happened.

This sidesteps Vencord's pnpm inject entirely, which is an interactive terminal UI that has to be driven by hand. If you ever do need it, run cd Vencord && pnpm inject yourself in a terminal.

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Using it

Click the media icon in any channel or DM header.

• Start typing in Search message text to narrow by message content.
• Pick people in the author box to see only their media. Selecting nobody means everyone.
• Use the per row dropdown to switch between 2 and 10 columns.
• Hit More ▼ for date range, extension, pinned-only and the tile size slider.
• In a server channel, switch This channel to Whole server to search every channel you can read.
• Switch to the Details layout for a spreadsheet-style view with sortable columns.

Scrolling to the bottom loads more automatically. The subtitle shows how many items are loaded and roughly how many matches exist in total.

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Settings

Found under Settings → Vencord → Plugins → MediaTab.

Setting	Default	Notes
Show the Media button in the channel header	on	Needs a reload to change — it's a patch
Also show a Media button next to the message box	off	Applies immediately
Which tab the browser opens on	Images
Default layout	Grid
How many items per row in grid view	4 per row	Also changeable live in the toolbar
Tile size	140px	Only used by "Fit to width"; live slider under More ▼
Blur media that was sent as a spoiler	on	Hovering reveals it

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Updating

Run the same one-line command you installed with. That's the whole answer for normal use:

Windows:

powershell -c "irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/destination/mediatab/main/get.ps1 | iex"

macOS / Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/destination/mediatab/main/get.sh | bash

It notices the existing install, pulls the latest MediaTab and the latest Vencord, rebuilds, and relinks. It closes Discord itself for the last step, so you don't have to quit it first. Your Vencord settings and plugin settings are untouched — re-runs don't reset anything and don't re-backup anything. Reopen Discord and press Ctrl+R / Cmd+R when it finishes.

Do this every few weeks. Not because it breaks loudly, but because running a stale client mod is the more realistic risk: patches drift out of date against Discord's code, and a broken patch throws errors inside Discord's own code.

Vencord's built-in auto-updater is deliberately switched off (it would replace this build with a stock download and MediaTab would disappear), so this is the only thing keeping you current.

If you cloned by hand

cd mediatab
./scripts/update.sh

Same job, plus two extra checks the one-liner skips: it typechecks, and it re-checks the plugin's patch against Discord's current code. If it reports failing tests, the header button probably won't appear — that's the patch needing a nudge, and docs/MAINTENANCE.md walks through fixing it.

Because the build is symlinked, it's live the moment update.sh finishes — just reload Discord. (If install.sh had to copy rather than symlink — Windows without Developer Mode — run ./scripts/install.sh again afterwards. update.sh detects this and says so.)

Rebuilding after your own edits

After changing anything in plugin/mediaTab/:

./scripts/build.sh     # sync + build, then Cmd+R in Discord

No reinstall needed — the dist symlink means a new build is live the moment it finishes. Or leave a watcher running:

./scripts/watch.sh     # rebuilds on save; still press Cmd+R to reload

When Discord updates itself

Let it update normally. Two things worth knowing:

• Your Vencord dist link lives in the Vencord data folder, which Discord updates don't touch. It survives.
• A Discord update can replace app.asar and remove the Vencord hook, so Discord starts vanilla. If that happens, run the official Vencord installer once to re-create the hook — it points back at the same dist path, which is still your link, so this plugin comes back with it.

Running the tests

node tests/run.mjs

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Uninstalling

# quit Discord first
./scripts/uninstall.sh

That swaps the dist symlink back for the stock Vencord build it moved aside, so you're exactly where you started. Discord itself was never modified by these scripts, so there's nothing else to undo. Re-enable auto-update in Settings → Vencord afterwards if you want it back.

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Troubleshooting

The header button isn't there.

1. Is the plugin enabled in Settings → Vencord → Plugins?
2. Did you reload with Cmd+R after enabling it? Patches need a fresh load.
3. Open DevTools (Cmd+Opt+I) → Console and look for [Vencord] Patch by MediaTab (…) errored or a "found no module" warning. That means a Discord update moved the code the patch targets — see docs/MAINTENANCE.md, which walks through fixing it.
4. As a workaround that never depends on patching, right-click the channel in the sidebar and pick View Media, or enable the chat bar button in settings.

"You don't have permission to search here." Discord's search needs Read Message History in that channel. Nothing to fix.

"Discord is rate limiting the search." Searching is rate limited per account. The plugin paces itself to one request at a time and backs off using the delay Discord returns, so this should be rare. Narrower filters mean fewer requests.

The All tab is slower than the others. By design. It searches five media types, and requests go out one at a time rather than all at once — see docs/RULES-AND-RISK.md. The single-type tabs are one request per page and feel instant.

Results are empty in a big server. Discord builds a search index per guild and returns HTTP 202 while that's still happening. The plugin waits and retries automatically, but the first search in a very large server can take a moment.

Videos show a grey tile instead of a thumbnail. Thumbnails come from media.discordapp.net, which can't produce a still frame for every codec. The tile still opens and plays normally.

Discord updated and everything broke. ./scripts/setup.sh to rebuild against the latest Vencord. If only the header button is gone, it's the patch — see docs/MAINTENANCE.md.

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Project layout

.
├── plugin/mediaTab/            the plugin itself — this is the source of truth
│   ├── index.tsx               plugin definition, the header patch, entry points
│   ├── headerPatch.ts          the patch regex, isolated so tests can verify it
│   ├── MediaBrowser.tsx        the modal: toolbar, grid/list/table, actions
│   ├── search.ts               Discord search API client + media extraction
│   ├── settings.ts             the settings schema
│   ├── types.ts                shared types and enums
│   ├── styles.css              all styling, themed with Discord's CSS variables
│   └── README.md               shown on the plugin's Vencord page
│
├── scripts/
│   ├── setup.sh                clone Vencord, install, sync, build
│   ├── sync.sh                 copy plugin/ into the Vencord checkout
│   ├── build.sh                sync + build
│   ├── watch.sh                rebuild on save
│   ├── install.sh              link Vencord's dist/ at this build
│   ├── update.sh               update Vencord, verify the patch, rebuild
│   ├── uninstall.sh            put the stock build back
│   └── lib.sh                  finds Vencord on macOS / Windows / Linux
│
├── tests/
│   ├── run.mjs                 bundles the plugin with stubs, runs node:test
│   ├── search.test.mjs         34 tests: extraction, queries, pagination
│   ├── patch.test.mjs          5 tests: the patch vs. a real Discord bundle
│   ├── fetch-discord-bundle.mjs downloads Discord's bundle for those tests
│   └── stubs/                  fake @webpack/common and @utils/Logger
│
├── docs/                       see below
└── Vencord/                    the clone (gitignored, disposable)

plugin/mediaTab/ is copied into Vencord/src/userplugins/mediaTab/ by sync.sh rather than symlinked. A symlink does not work: esbuild resolves the real path, which lands outside the Vencord checkout, and Vencord's @utils/… tsconfig path aliases then stop applying.

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Further docs

Document	What's in it
docs/SHARING.md	Giving it to a friend — what they need, what to send, what to warn them about
docs/RULES-AND-RISK.md	ToS, ban risk, what "undetectable" can and can't mean, and how the plugin keeps its traffic boring
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md	How the plugin is put together, and why
docs/DISCORD-SEARCH-API.md	The search endpoint, every parameter, verified against Discord's own client code
docs/VENCORD-PLUGINS.md	How Vencord plugins and patches work, as a reference for writing more
docs/TESTING.md	What's tested, how the harness works, how to add tests
docs/MAINTENANCE.md	Fixing the patch when a Discord update breaks it
docs/RESEARCH.md	How the unknowns were pinned down, including the bundle-spelunking method

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Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later, matching Vencord.