Moodboard Without Copying Files: Build One in refern

To build a moodboard without copying existing files, point refern at a folder you already have, let normal workspace setup index those images in place, then drag them onto the built-in infinite canvas. Explicit imports and copy actions are separate and can create files.

Moodboard and reference tools use different storage models. Eagle's standard import copies media into a managed .library. BeeRef embeds board media. PureRef 2.x embeds local images by default but can link them to existing disk paths. A normal refern workspace indexes existing source files in place, while explicit imports and copy actions can create files.

There is a better way. This guide shows how to build a moodboard from a normal refern workspace, which indexes existing source files in place. Explicit imports and file actions can still create or change files.

Before you start

What you need:

• A folder of images already on your computer or an external drive. Any normal folder works. You do not need to reorganize anything first.
• refern installed. Download at refern.app. The 30-day free trial is full-featured with no account required.
• About five minutes to set up your first workspace.

Honest limitations to know upfront:

• refern does not have cloud sync yet; it is planned without a published date. A copied or exported canvas can move between machines, but do not treat simultaneous access to one live workspace database on shared, network, or cloud storage as multi-device sync. Use backups, copied exports, selected source files, or a purpose-built sync workflow instead.
• refern does not have a mobile app today.
• AVIF is not yet a supported format.

If cloud-based sharing is essential right now, Milanote and Figma handle that well, though both are subscription-based and store your files on their servers.

Step 1: Create a workspace pointing at your existing folder

When you first open refern, it asks you to create or open a workspace based on a folder on your disk. During normal setup, refern leaves existing source images in place. Its SQLite index and generated thumbnails live alongside, or in a configured data location associated with, the workspace.

Steps:

1. Click "New Workspace" in the welcome screen.
2. Choose the folder that already contains your images. This can be a project folder, your downloads folder, an external drive folder, or any directory you already use for references.
3. refern scans the folder and builds the index and thumbnails in the background. The pipeline is crash-resumable, so interrupted work can continue. Completion time depends on library size, file formats, storage, thumbnail state, and hardware; this guide does not publish a numerical benchmark.

Your images appear in a grid inside refern. Nothing has moved on disk.

Coming from Eagle: Use File > Import Eagle Library. The importer copies the first supported media placement into a new Eagle Library folder in the refern workspace and represents later Eagle folder placements as linked database records. The supported surface includes nested folders, tags, ratings, sources, annotations, comments, supported media, and multi-folder placements. Password locks, saved smart-folder rules, arbitrary plugin-owned data, and unsupported media are excluded.

Step 2: Browse and search your images

Before building the moodboard, find the images you want on it. refern gives you several ways to search without copying anything:

Full-text search: Type any word in the search bar. refern searches filenames, descriptions, notes, tags, source URLs, and creator fields using a local FTS5 index. This page does not publish a universal response-time benchmark.

Inline operators: Narrow results with typed filters:

• type:image rating:>=4 shows only your four-star and five-star images.
• tag:character tag:fantasy finds images matching both tags.
• color:#3a2b1e finds images by dominant color.

Color search: Click the color picker icon and pick a hex value or sample any pixel from an image. refern returns images sorted by how closely their palette matches. Useful for building a moodboard around a specific color theme.

Visual similarity: Right-click any image and choose "Find similar." refern uses a local visual descriptor (HSV histogram, dominant colors, color layout, and edge information) to surface similar-looking images. No internet connection is used.

All of these tools work on your original files where they sit on disk. You are querying an index, not a copy.

Step 3: Create a canvas file

A canvas in refern is a .refern-canvas file stored inside your workspace folder. It is a JSON document that records which images are placed on it and where, along with any text, shapes, or drawings you add. It references your originals; it does not embed them.

To create a canvas:

1. In the left sidebar, right-click any folder (or the workspace root) and choose "New Canvas."
2. Name it (for example "Costume Moodboard v1" or "Color Study Q3").
3. The canvas opens in the editor.

You can have as many canvases as you like. Each one is just a file in your folder that you can back up, copy, or open on another machine running refern pointed at the same folder.

Step 4: Drag images from your library onto the canvas

With the canvas open:

1. Resize the window so you can see the library sidebar on the left.
2. Click an image in the library and drag it onto the canvas. It places at its original aspect ratio. Hold Shift to select multiple images and drag them all at once.
3. Drag the corners to resize. Use the rotation handle to rotate. Click and drag to reposition.

Images on the canvas are references to your originals. Nothing is embedded.

Organize with layers: Press Cmd+G (Mac) or Ctrl+G (Windows/Linux) to group selected images into a named layer with an optional background fill. Layers can be nested and reordered in the Layer panel (View > Layer Panel).

Add context:

• Click the Text tool in the toolbar to add labels or headings.
• Use the shape tools (9 primitive shapes) to add frames, arrows, or color swatch markers.
• Draw freehand annotations with the pen tool (hotkey B).

Step 5: Apply image adjustments without touching the originals

You can change how images look on the canvas while leaving the source files untouched:

Filters per image: Select any image on the canvas and open the filter panel in the right sidebar. Adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue. These adjustments are stored as canvas parameters. The file on disk is unchanged.

Non-destructive crop: Select an image and choose "Crop." The crop is stored as a parameter on the canvas element. The original file is not modified.

Save a crop as a new file: Right-click and choose "Crop > Save as new." refern writes a cropped version alongside the original and records a "derived from" link so you can always trace the new file back to its source.

Step 6: Pin the canvas on top of your art application

Once your moodboard is arranged, float it over your painting or modeling software:

1. Click the pin icon in the top-right corner of the canvas window. The window stays on top of all other applications.
2. Use the opacity slider to make the canvas semi-transparent so you can see your work through it.
3. Enable click-through (the mouse icon in the pin controls) so your mouse clicks pass through the canvas window into your drawing application. You can keep painting without switching windows.

This is the PureRef overlay workflow, built directly into refern, with a full searchable library and infinite canvas behind it.

Common problems and fixes

"My images do not show up after I point refern at my folder." refern supports JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, APNG, HEIC, RAW, SVG, TIFF, and other common image formats, plus video (MP4, MKV, MOV, WebM, and more). PDFs, fonts, audio, 3D files, and design source files like PSD appear only if the workspace opts into them under Edit workspace, "File types shown." PDFs receive a first-page grid preview and open in a native viewer with continuous scrolling, embedded-text search, selection and copy, print, page controls, view-only rotation, and zoom. Scanned PDFs are not OCRed. The other extra file types remain icon-only generic files. AVIF has no decoder. You can start using the canvas while scanning continues in the background; initial-scan time varies with the library and machine.

"I moved a file on disk and now refern shows it as missing." Go to the folder in the sidebar and click "Sync with disk" or press the Resync button in the notification bar. refern reconciles its index with the current state of your folder. Canvas references update once the sync confirms the new location.

"The canvas is slow with many high-resolution images." Try hiding layers you are not currently editing (click the eye icon in the Layer panel). The canvas renderer only draws visible elements. The level-of-detail system also reduces texture memory automatically as you zoom out.

"I want to use images from a different folder in the same canvas." A workspace can index several separate content roots at once, even ones on different drives. Add the other folder as a root and it is indexed alongside the first and appears in the same library, so you can drag from either onto the canvas. Your files stay where they are.

Why other tools copy your files

Understanding the alternatives helps you see why the in-place approach matters.

Eagle ($34.95 one-time as of August 31, 2026, Windows and macOS only) uses standard import to copy media into an Eagle-managed .library folder rather than indexing originals in place. If source originals are retained, their media bytes exist in both locations. Generated data and later file handling also affect the final total, so there is no universal multiplier. [eagle.cool/support] Eagle also has no canvas or moodboard view, so building a moodboard requires a separate tool.

Eagle is a genuinely strong library and search tool with format support for 99 to 108 file types (depending on platform), a mature plugin ecosystem, and years of community tutorials. If you need those strengths, it is worth considering. The file-copying behavior and the absent canvas are real gaps for the moodboard use case.

PureRef (zero-dollar custom amount for personal non-commercial use; $49 Small Business license for up to three users, verified August 31, 2026; Windows, macOS, Linux) saves scenes as .pur files. Local images embed by default, but PureRef 2.x can link them to existing disk paths. It has no documented library-wide tag database or cross-board content search, so retrieval remains scene-scoped.

PureRef's canvas and always-on-top overlay are genuinely excellent for session-scoped reference boards while painting or modeling. If you only need a canvas overlay for a single project and have no library needs, PureRef (especially at its personal price) is hard to argue with.

BeeRef (free, GPL open source, Windows, macOS (experimental), Linux) also embeds images inside a .bee file (a SQLite container). GitHub issue #40 documents that adding one PNG produced a file 16 KB larger than the original with no quality difference. [github.com/rbreu/beeref/issues/40] The issue was closed without a fix. Like PureRef, BeeRef has no tags, no search, and no library spanning multiple boards.

BeeRef is completely free and open source, which makes it the right pick for artists who cannot spend anything or need GPL software. Its scope is intentionally narrow and it is stable within that scope.

refern leaves existing originals in place during normal workspace indexing. Its SQLite index and generated thumbnails live alongside, or in a configured data location associated with, the workspace. Explicit imports and file actions can create or change files. The index and cache can be rebuilt from available originals, but that is not a substitute for independent backups of both media and workspace data.

Comparison at a glance

For a deeper look at each head-to-head comparison, see refern vs Eagle and refern vs PureRef.

Next steps

Once your first moodboard canvas is built, explore these related guides:

• How to tag reference images: Build a tag system that makes your whole library searchable by mood, subject, color, or project.
• How to find similar images in your local library: Use color search and visual similarity to surface references you forgot you had.
• How to create smart folders: Save search queries as folders that auto-populate with matching images.
• How to import your Eagle library: Bring your existing Eagle collection into refern while keeping everything on disk.

Building a moodboard without copying files is not a workaround. It is the correct default. Your files already have a home on disk. A good tool works with that structure, not against it. refern indexes what you have, lets you search it, and gives you an infinite canvas to compose it, all without touching a single original.