FAQ

Android or iOS

Can HakuNeko run on Android or iOS?

No, HakuNeko is build on electron and therefore can only run on platforms that are supported by electron. Furthermore the current user interface is not optimized for mobile devices.

Image format

Why are images downloaded in .webp format instead of .jpg or .png?

Images are always downloaded in the same format as they are available on the website to provide the best quality. However, there are two exceptions where HakuNeko must re-compress images. Some websites are only providing scrambled/puzzled images as some kind of anti-scraping security mechanism. HakuNeko will de-scramble these images and save them in the format configured in the settings. The second case is when the chapters are downloaded as PDF, but the format is not compatible (e.g. .webp), HakuNeko will convert these images to .jpg with a quality of 90 before they are embedded into the output PDF file. Furthermore, it is possible to use the Post Command in HakuNeko’s settings to convert images after the download into another format. Read the tool-tip of the Post Command for some samples, or ImageMagick’s documentation on how to use the command line convert tool.

Convert images

How to convert images after download?

Either use a third party tool to batch convert the images, or use HakuNeko’s ability to run a Post Command: On Linux or macOS make sure ImageMagick is installed and added to the PATH environment variable. On Windows HakuNeko comes already bundled with ImageMagick, so no need for an additional installation. . Open HakuNeko settings . Find the setting for Post Command . Enter the following command (example for Windows, Linux/macOS needs to be adjusted): mkdir "%PATH%_conv" 2>nul & convert "%PATH%\*.webp" -scene 1 "%PATH%_conv\%03d.png"

  • Creates a new chapter folder with the suffix _conv
  • Process all images from the original chapter folder that matches *.webp
  • Images will be converted to PNG using 3-digit numbering starting with an offset of 1
  • The PNG images are stored in the new folder with the _conv suffix

Kindle

How to convert EPUB to MOBI for Kindle?

Either use a third party tool to batch convert the ebooks, or use HakuNeko’s ability to run a Post Command: The kindle converter is bundled with all versions of HakuNeko, so no need for an additional installation. . Open HakuNeko settings . Find the setting for Post Command . Enter the following command: kindlegen "%PATH%"

  • Converts the EPUB file into a MOBI file (same manga directory)
  • This will only work if the EPUB is compatible (e.g. no webp images)

Missing Manga

Why are new mangas shown on the website, but not in HakuNeko’s manga list?

HakuNeko is using a CDN to cache manga lists for certain websites to protect users from being IP banned for making to many requests. Unfortunately the CDN needs to be updated manually right now, so it can take 2~6 weeks until the list is updated. However users can still use the Link Copy & Paste feature to access the latest mangas within HakuNeko, even if they are not in HakuNeko’s list. Cached lists can be found in the corresponding repository.

Copy and paste

How to use the Copy & Paste Feature?

Go to the website containing the manga you want to download. Browse to the manga (the page that lists the chapters). Copy the URL. Switch to HakuNeko and press the paste button at top of the manga list panel.

How to manually import bookmarks from a website?

Some websites allows logged in users to bookmark mangas. To a certain degree it may be possible to batch-import these bookmarks manually to HakuNeko (probably as backup in case the site went down). The following schematic instructions are illustrated using MangaDex, but can be adapted to any other website as well:

  1. Open the website in your browser and login with your account
  2. Navigate to your bookmark list
  3. Open the developer tools (F12) and perform a JavaScript CSS query in the console tab to extract all bookmarked links e.g. 
    console.log([...document.querySelectorAll('a.manga_title')].map(a => a.href).join('\n'));
// SAMPLE OUPUT:
// https://mangadex.org/title/540/hitogatana
// https://mangadex.org/title/44134/piquant
// https://mangadex.org/title/37103/rain
// https://mangadex.org/title/1098/sins
// https://mangadex.org/title/46819/radical
  4. Select and copy the links from the console output to the clipboard (CTRL + C)
  5. Switch to HakuNeko and press the paste button at top of the manga list panel
  6. Select each entry one by one and click the bookmark button manga list

Download with failures

How to download chapters with broken images?

It is not possible. A chapter is broken if one or more of its images are broken. There are recurrent requests from users to allow downloading broken chapters, but for now this will not be supported for the following reason: Other users will start complaining why images are missing in some chapters. Here are some recommendations to handle this problem:

  • Report the chapter with the broken image to the website owner (but don’t mention that you want to scrape with HakuNeko)
  • Simply download the chapter from one of the other website sources (see watermark to find original scanlator website)

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