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Getting Started

PanoPaper shows the cameras of a UniFi Protect NVR on your network - a UniFi console running UniFi Protect, such as a UNVR, a Cloud Key or a Dream Machine - and IP cameras that work on their own and speak ONVIF or RTSP, no NVR needed. You need a user name and password for your NVR, or your cameras' own account if they have one. Four steps take you from first launch to a live camera on your desktop.

Every feature is free. For the first seven days your cameras show without “UNLICENSED” across them - see PanoPaper Pro.

1. Open PanoPaper

Open PanoPaper from your Applications folder. The Mac App Store puts it there; the Web Edition you move there yourself - if you open it from anywhere else, straight from your Downloads folder, say, it asks to install itself in Applications, where it can keep itself up to date: click 'Install in Applications'.

PanoPaper has no Dock icon. It lives in the menu bar: click its icon for its panel. As long as nothing is set up, PanoPaper opens its welcome window when it starts, which takes you through the steps below one page at a time.

2. Allow access to your local network

PanoPaper looks for NVRs and cameras on your network as soon as it starts. The first time, macOS asks whether PanoPaper may find and connect to devices on your local network. Click 'Allow' - without it, PanoPaper can neither find nor reach your NVR or cameras.

If you clicked 'Don't Allow', the menu bar panel says that PanoPaper can't look for NVRs or cameras on your network: click 'Open Privacy & Security' there, then Local Network, and turn PanoPaper on. PanoPaper notices within a few seconds and looks again.

3. Sign in to your NVR or cameras

On the Cameras tab of Settings (click the gear at the top of the menu bar panel), NVRs PanoPaper found on your network are listed as Found on network. Double-click yours (or select it and click 'Sign In…'), enter a user name and password, and click 'Sign In'.

Not listed? PanoPaper only finds NVRs on the same network segment as your Mac. Click + under the list - choose 'Add UniFi NVR…' if it offers a choice - and enter the NVR's host name or IP address.

Once signed in, the NVR's cameras appear in the Cameras list below it. Signing In to an NVR explains which account to use.

IP cameras are on the same tab, on its IP Cameras page: cameras that answer ONVIF on your network are listed there - double-click one and sign in with the camera's own account. A camera PanoPaper did not find, or one without ONVIF, is added by clicking + - choose 'Add Camera…' if it offers a choice - and entering its IP address or host name, or pasting its RTSP URL (rtsp:// or rtsps://). See Cameras Without an NVR.

4. Choose a camera

Click the menu bar icon and click a camera's picture (with several displays, pick the display at the top first). Its live video becomes the wallpaper of that display. In the Web Edition, the camera is for the Space you are looking at: switch to another Space and it can show another camera - see Choosing Cameras.

Your desktop icons and widgets stay on top of the video, and clicking the wallpaper works as always. Click the camera's picture in the panel again to bring back your normal wallpaper - PanoPaper never changes it. With only one camera, PanoPaper chooses it by itself and its picture stays on - 'Hide Cameras' brings back your normal wallpaper instead.

The welcome window

The welcome window shows what PanoPaper does and lists the NVRs and cameras it found on your network: click 'Sign In…' on yours, or 'Add…' for one it did not find. Then you pick your first camera, see where PanoPaper lives in the menu bar, and make a few last choices: alerts when your cameras detect a person or an animal, camera audio, and opening at login. Click 'Continue' to go on and 'Back' to go back; 'Start Using PanoPaper' on the last page closes it.

To see it again, choose 'Welcome to PanoPaper…' in the PanoPaper menu. You can close it at any time: everything in it is also in the menu bar panel and in Settings.

Open at login

To have your cameras back after every restart, turn on 'Open PanoPaper at login' in Settings ▸ General. PanoPaper remembers each display's camera and signs in to your NVRs and cameras by itself.

Next steps