A former Abertay University computer gaming student was caught with more than 13,000 indecent images of children, a court heard.
Anthony Sheridan, 34, also amassed more than 12 hours of abuse videos, some of which he shared with fellow paedophiles.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that some of the files recovered from Sheridan’s computers were at the most severe end of the scale for child abuse material.
Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson said: “He (Sheridan) admitted that he had been downloading pornography since he was in his early twenties and that it was only more recently that he viewed images and videos of children.
“He stated that he was downloading and viewing pornography on an almost daily basis.
“He also admitted using a program called Tor Browser to download these images as the program apparently makes it more difficult to identify computers downloading such material.
“The accused admitted that he knew that this was wrong and always thought that he would get caught.”
Miss Robertson told the court that a total of 496 indecent images and 136 indecent videos were recovered from a computer tower and 12,549 images and 44 videos recovered from a hard drive.
She added: “The eMule file sharing software was installed on the accused’s computer.
“This is a software package which allows people to exchange any form of computer file on a person-to-person basis on the internet.
“Sixteen indecent videos of children had been shared by the accused.”
Sheridan, of Baldovan Terrace, Dundee, admitted possessing and distributing indecent images of children between December 2012 and December 2013.
Deferring sentence until February 26, Sheriff Elizabeth Munro told Sheridan, who was previously placed on the sex offenders register: “This is a very serious instance of this kind of offence.
“With some hesitation, I will grant you bail.”