Your own streaming service. On your TV. Yours forever.
No subscriptions. No ads. Nothing disappears because a licence ran out.
Get started · Download · FAQ · Troubleshooting · Build on it
Shows vanish. Prices go up. The film you wanted is "not available in your region".
Tortugarr turns a spare PC into your own streaming service. It looks and feels like the big apps, it runs on your TV with the normal remote, and everything you add stays.
- Browse what is trending, popular and coming soon, right on the TV.
- Pick Download Now, and choose the exact file: quality, size, how many share it.
- Watch. It lands in your library on its own, with subtitles.
No laptop. No copying files around. No fiddling with five web pages.
Download Now: every release, sorted by quality, with size and seeders. You pick; it does the rest.
- 🛋️ Made for the remote. Every feature works from the sofa, on Android TV and Google TV.
- 🎯 You choose the file. No black box: see every release, its quality and size, and pick.
- 🛡️ Fakes stay out. Cinema recordings, fake releases and hidden .exefiles are filtered and blocked before they reach your library.
- 📺 Series that complete themselves. See exactly which episodes you are missing, grab one, a whole season, or let a season follow itself as new episodes air.
- 💬 Subtitles included. Fetched automatically by your server. Missing one? Find it from the TV.
- 🧹 Cleans up after itself. Delete from the TV and the file, the download and the request all go. Running low on space? It tells you what is safe to remove.
- 🔒 Nothing phones home. The app talks to your server and nothing else. No account with us, no tracking. The app itself holds no keys or passwords.
- 📱 TV, phone and tablet. Same library everywhere; start on the phone, finish on the TV.
Film series at a glance: the parts you have, the ones you are missing (one click to get them), and what is coming.
Browse with the remote: open a film and see the whole film series – what you have, what is missing, what is coming.
Delete from the sofa. It asks first, then the file, the download and the request are gone.
One command sets up the whole harbor. A few questions with sensible defaults, then the installer sets up and connects everything: Jellyfin, Seerr, Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr, the download client and the Tortugarr plugin. The app talks to your Jellyfin server; downloads, deletes and subtitles go through the Tortugarr plugin there, so the app holds no keys.
Tortugarr does not bundle these tools. They are independent open-source projects; the installer downloads their official releases and wires them together.
flowchart LR
app["📺 Tortugarr app<br/>TV · phone · tablet"] -->|port 8096| jf["Jellyfin<br/>+ Tortugarr plugin"]
jf --> arr["Sonarr · Radarr"]
jf --> bazarr["Bazarr<br/>subtitles"]
seerr["Seerr<br/>requests"] --> arr
prowlarr["Prowlarr<br/>your indexers"] --> arr
arr --> dl["Download client<br/>qBittorrent · SABnzbd"]
dl --> media[("Your media folder")]
media --> jf
Ports, files and security notes: architecture.
Everything you need is on the Releases page:
Jellyfin, Seerr, Sonarr and the other tools are not inside these files: the installer downloads them (and Docker, if needed) from the internet while it runs, about 5 GB the first time.
Before you start, you need:
- A PC or server with Linux: Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 (64-bit). Other Debian-based systems usually work but are not tested.
- 4 GB RAM, about 5 GB for the software, and room for your movies and series.
- An internet connection during the install.
- Your own indexers (and, if you want, a usenet provider or a VPN subscription).
- Windows? It is not supported, but you can run the installer inside WSL2. See Windows and WSL2 in the install guide first.
Open a terminal on the machine that will be your server and run:
wget https://github.com/tortugarr/tortugarr/releases/latest/download/tortugarr-server-4.20.0.tar \
https://github.com/tortugarr/tortugarr/releases/latest/download/SHA256SUMS.txt
sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS.txt # should print: tortugarr-server-4.20.0.tar: OK
tar -xf tortugarr-server-4.20.0.tar
cd tortugarr-server
sudo ./install.shAnswer the questions (pressing Enter takes the default), and choose the username and password you will log in with everywhere. Docker is installed for you if it is missing. At the end the installer prints the addresses of everything it set up.
A whole install, sped up: questions, downloads, wiring everything together, done.
- Every question and option explained: the install guide.
- Which ports it uses and how the pieces connect: architecture.
- Something not right? Run sudo tortugarr doctor, then see troubleshooting.
Open Prowlarr at http://<server-address>:9696 and add the indexers you want under
Indexers > Add Indexer. They are passed on to the rest automatically. This is the one thing
Tortugarr cannot do for you.
The TV needs to allow apps from outside the Play Store:
- On the TV, install Downloader (by AFTVnews) from the Play Store.
- Allow it to install apps: Settings > Apps > Security & restrictions > Unknown sources > Downloader.
- Open Downloader, type the address of tortugarr-tv-4.20.0.apkfrom the Releases page, and install it.
Other ways work too: a USB stick with the APK, or adb install tortugarr-tv-4.20.0.apk.
Open the Releases page on the phone, tap tortugarr-phone-4.20.0.apk, and allow your browser
to install apps when Android asks.
💡 Stay up to date without thinking about it: add this repository to Obtainium, a free app that installs APKs straight from GitHub Releases and tells you when a new version is out.
Open Tortugarr, add your server (http://<server-address>:8096) and choose Quick Connect.
The TV shows a six-digit code. On your phone, open the same address in a browser, log in, tap
the profile icon > Quick Connect, and type the code. Done.
Changed your mind? Uninstall
On the server:
sudo tortugarr uninstallIt lists what it will remove and asks before it does anything:
- Your movies and series are never touched. Everything in the data folder
(/srv/tortugarrby default) stays exactly where it is.
- Settings and passwords: keep them (a reinstall picks up where you left off) or delete them.
- A backup first: offered by default, so you can always come back.
- Docker and the downloaded images: removed only if you say so, and Docker only if Tortugarr installed it.
- On Windows with WSL2: the port forwarding, firewall rules and keep-alive task are removed too, and the network is set back the way it was.
On the TV or phone, remove the app like any other: Settings > Apps > Tortugarr > Uninstall.
For developers: build from source
git clone https://github.com/tortugarr/tortugarr.git
cd tortugarrYou need these installed first (setting them up is up to you):
App:
cd app
cp lib/data/services/download/download_now_secrets.example.dart \
lib/data/services/download/download_now_secrets.dart
flutter pub get
flutter build apk --release --flavor androidTv-public --dart-define=TORTUGARR_PUBLIC=true # TV
flutter build apk --release --flavor mobile-public --dart-define=TORTUGARR_PUBLIC=true # phoneThe APKs land in app/build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/. Without your own signing key
(android/app/release.keystore) they are signed with the debug key, which is fine for
sideloading.
- Server: build the plugin and make the tar file as described in
server/README.md. A plain clone is not enough to install: the built plugin is not kept in git.
Tortugarr was built by one person and an AI, for one living room. If it is useful to you, it can be so much more, and you are warmly invited to build on it:
- Fork it and make it yours. That is what the licence is for.
- More screens: the app is built on Moonfin, which already runs on iPhone, Apple TV, desktop and web. Tortugarr only ships Android today; bring the Tortugarr features to the rest.
- More homes: other Linux distributions, ARM boards like the Raspberry Pi, a NAS.
- More people: per-user permissions, profiles for the kids, more languages.
- Better ideas than ours: open an issue, send a pull request, or just tell us what you would change. CONTRIBUTING.md shows how to build both parts and what is where in this repository.
Every pirate ship started as somebody else's boat.
Open source under GPL-2.0. Use it, change it, share it. See LICENSE.
Tortugarr ships software only: no content, no indexers and no accounts. You decide what you add, and you are responsible for using it legally where you live.