Users and access¶

First-run setup¶

A new server has no accounts and no default password. The first time you open it, the Welcome to MangaPixer screen asks you to create the administrator account. See Install with Docker.

Once that account exists, the setup screen is gone for good. Every later account is created by an admin.

Account rules:

Usernames can contain letters, digits and - . _ @ +. No spaces. Case is ignored, so Alice and alice are the same account.
Passwords need at least 8 characters, including at least one lowercase letter.

Admins and readers¶

There are two roles, shown as Admin and Reader in the user list.

	Reader	Admin
Read libraries	Only the libraries an admin has granted	Every library
Own settings, password, reading progress	Yes	Yes
MangaPixer Administration (libraries and their icons, scans, users, backups, analytics, audit trail, update checker, log level, YACReader import)	No	Yes
Set reading direction for libraries and folders	No	Yes

Admins open the admin page from the account menu (MangaPixer Administration); the same menu has a Metadata Manager item for the Metadata Manager page. The server always keeps at least one active admin: it refuses to disable or demote the last one.

Creating users¶

In MangaPixer Administration > Users > Create New User:

Enter a Username.
Choose how the person gets their password:
Leave Password (optional) blank to get an activation link. After Create User, a box shows the link. Select Copy link and send it to the person. The link is single-use and expires after 48 hours. On the Activate your account page they choose a password and select Set password & activate, which signs them in.
Enter a password to create the account with a temporary password. At first sign-in they must set a new one on the Set a new password screen before they can do anything else.
Tick Admin role only for people who should administer the server.

If a link expires or gets lost before it is used, select Reissue activation link on that user's row to get a fresh one (only for accounts that have not been activated yet). Until the account is activated, sign-in attempts get the normal "Invalid username or password." message.

The link uses the address you used to open the admin page. If you run behind a reverse proxy, check that the link points at your public address; see Reverse proxy and HTTPS.

Library access¶

New readers see no libraries until you grant them. In the Users list, select Library access (the books icon) on a reader's row and tick the libraries they may read. Changes take effect immediately. Admins always see every library, so the panel only explains that for them.

Managing accounts¶

Task	How
Reset a forgotten password	Reset password (the key icon) on the user's row. A temporary password appears in a message for 10 seconds; copy it and pass it on. The user must choose a new password at next sign-in, and all their sessions are signed out.
Change your own password	Settings > Account Settings > Change Password. This signs out every session, including the one you are using, so sign in again afterwards.
Disable or re-enable an account	API only: `POST /api/v1/admin/users/<id>/update` with `{"isActive": false}` or `true`. Disabling signs the user out everywhere.
Make someone an admin, or remove admin	API only: the same endpoint with `{"isAdmin": true}` or `false`. The user is signed out of every session, so the new role applies as soon as they sign back in.
Sign a user out everywhere	API only: `DELETE /api/v1/admin/users/<id>/sessions`.
Delete an account	Delete user (the bin icon) on the user's row, then confirm. This removes the account together with its reading progress, read marks, bookmarks, favorites, settings, library access and sessions. Your files are not touched. The last active admin cannot be deleted.

User IDs come from GET /api/v1/admin/users. For how to call the admin API from a script, see Backup and restore.

Analytics¶

MangaPixer Administration shows an Analytics section: instance-wide totals (libraries, content, analysis backlog, users, engagement) and a per-user table (role, active/pending status, last login, chapters completed/in progress, bookmarks, favorites, last reading activity). It is admin-only, computed on demand (no data is pre-aggregated or stored beyond what already exists), and refreshes when you open it or select Refresh.

Admins see counts and timestamps only, never chapter or item titles, file or folder names, or paths. The same rule applies to every other admin page (backups, audit trail, diagnostics).

Reading in a library a user marked Private (see below) is left out of that user's row. The totals at the top still include it, so the rows do not always add up to the totals.

Private libraries and Incognito¶

These two features work together to keep some libraries out of sight. For example, you can keep a library off the home screen when you show someone your tablet.

Private is a personal flag. In Settings > Private Libraries, tick the libraries you want to mark. It only affects your own account. Other users are not affected, and it does not restrict access.
Incognito is a switch in the account menu (Incognito: On / Incognito: Off). While it is on, your Private libraries are hidden from the library list and sidebar, Home (Continue reading and new chapters), search, and browsing.

Things to know:

Incognito starts On every time you open the app in a new tab or window. Reloading a tab keeps your current choice. Switching it reloads the page.
A direct link to an archive in a Private library still opens.
Incognito does not stop tracking. Reading progress and read marks are still saved, including for Private libraries. They are just not shown on Home while Incognito is on.
If you mark nothing Private, Incognito changes nothing.
The Private Libraries list in Settings always shows every library you can access, so you can unmark one while Incognito is on.

Your settings¶

Settings saved to your account follow you to every device:

Settings page:
Always open read archives from the start (Reading card)
Private Libraries
New Chapters: how many Days count as new (default 30, 1–365) and which libraries contribute to the home row (Show new chapters from)
Items per load (Performance card): 25, 50 (default), 100 or 200
Favorites: Show a "Favorites" row on the home page and Highlight favorited results in search, both off by default
Series information: Show series information on hover, on by default (see Series information)
Library view: view mode, sort, sort order, card size and list columns.
Favorites themselves (see Library layout).

Saved per archive, for everyone who can read it: the double-page pairing (see Fixing double-page pairing).

Settings saved in the current browser only:

Reader layout (Auto / Single / Double / Double shifted), and the cover-alone default for archives nobody has adjusted
Page transition
Page quality, downscale filter, Upscaling and Enhance quality (see Image quality)
Vertical-mode page width and Tap to scroll step
Whether the reader help has been shown
Whether the library sidebar is collapsed
Incognito (per tab)

See Reader for what each reader setting does.

Sessions and security¶

Sign-in lasts 7 days from your last activity. While you keep using MangaPixer it stays signed in; after 7 days without using it you are asked to sign in again. Closing the browser does not sign you out. Logout in the account menu does, and ends that session on the server too.
Password changes, password resets and disabling an account end all of that user's sessions.
Cookies: the sign-in cookie (.MangaPixer.Auth) and the request-protection cookie (.MangaPixer.Csrf) are HttpOnly and SameSite=Strict. Scripts on a page cannot read them, and other sites cannot use them.
Request protection: every change (anything except a plain read) must carry a token from GET /api/v1/auth/csrf in the X-MangaPixer-Csrf header. The web app handles this for you. Scripts must do it themselves.
Brute-force protection: after 5 failed sign-ins for one username, or 10 from one IP address, within 5 minutes, further attempts are refused for a while ("Too many login attempts. Please try again later."). Separately, 5 wrong passwords lock that account for 15 minutes. See Configuration.
Sign-in keys are stored in the keys folder of the data root. They are what keeps you signed in across restarts. If they are lost, everyone simply signs in again. On Linux they are stored unencrypted with owner-only permissions, so protect your data folder.
The server speaks plain HTTP. On anything other than a trusted home network, put it behind HTTPS.