Features
Everything a self-hosted music server should have had already
Lidarr manages a library beautifully and recommends nothing. Aurral is the layer that decides what goes into it, fetches it, checks it, and hands it to the playback server you already use.
Discover
Personalised recommendations with a match percentage, trending artists, genre tags, recent and upcoming releases, playlists, artist news and nearby shows. Three discovery modes decide how far outside your library a pick may reach.
- Seed artists from likes, history and a rotating library sample
- Only MusicBrainz genre tags count, so mood tags do not distort matching
- More like this, Less like this and Block artist feed the next rebuild
Flows
Scheduled playlists built from four sources with a share slider, plus Focus for hand-picked tags and related artists, and Deep Dive for going past each artist's most-played tracks.
- Schedule by size, days and hour
- Discover, Library, Trending and Focus with proportional shares
- Reserve candidates replace failed downloads so the mix keeps its shape
- Publish to Navidrome, Plex or Jellyfin, or export a Lidarr custom list
Playlists
Static playlists with a fixed tracklist or one that follows another service. Imports from Spotify, YouTube Music, Last.fm, ListenBrainz and plain JSON files.
- Reuses existing library and Lidarr files instead of re-downloading
- Per-playlist scrobble and availability display
- Sync schedules with configurable behaviour for removed tracks
Quality
Tiered quality profiles with a cutoff, post-download file verification, and scheduled upgrade searches that queue behind missing-track downloads.
- FLAC hi-res, FLAC standard, MP3 and M4A bitrate tiers
- Real format, bitrate, sample rate and bit depth checked after download
- Automatic upgrades from slskd, Usenet and deemix, never yt-dlp
Library and search
An index of everything Aurral and Lidarr manage, built by scanning tags and MusicBrainz IDs off your files. Every artist and album has both a Library view and a Discover view.
- Quick scans for changed files, full scans when you have retagged
- Favourites, genres, album artists and per-track availability
- Artists without a MusicBrainz ID can be linked manually
Activity and Wanted
One place to see what Aurral is doing. Queue holds active work and anything waiting on your decision, History holds finished, denied and failed work, and Wanted lists tracks needing attention.
- Review a download when identity or duration is unclear
- Missing and Cutoff unmet filters with single or bulk searches
- Choose a download manually from up to 100 results per client
Also included
The parts that are not the point, but matter daily
Search
Find any artist or album, preview it, and add it with your defaults.
Inbox
New releases, nearby shows, artist news and new discoveries in one feed.
Blocklist
Artists you excluded, removed from recommendations and future downloads.
Multi-user
Profiles, permissions, local sign-in, LAN auto-login, SSO and native OIDC.
Integrations
Connect what you already run, skip the rest
Library
The music manager decides what ends up on disk. Aurral never writes into someone else's library folder.
Downloads
Where the audio actually comes from. Source order decides which client gets asked first.
Playback
Playback stays where it is. Aurral publishes playlists into the server you already run.
Listening history
History is the strongest recommendation signal you already own. Wire it in and the picks improve.
Alerts and shows
Optional signals that turn a static library into something that keeps moving.
Use cases
Read the page for the situation you are in
Installing Aurral for the first time
How do I get from nothing to a working discovery server?
Fixing media path mounts
Why does Aurral not see the music Lidarr sees?
Planning disk for lossless
How much disk do I need before turning on FLAC?
Fixing UID and GID problems
Why are downloads unreadable after the container writes them?
Behind a reverse proxy
How do I serve Aurral over HTTPS with SSO?
Listening from your phone
How do I connect a phone app to my own server?
When your library stopped being fun
I have 40,000 tracks and I only play the same forty.
Going deeper without the slop
How do I get past the obvious recommendations?
Building a flow around one decade
Can I build a flow that only plays 1980s music?
A weekly routine that runs itself
How do I make this feel like Discover Weekly?
Never miss a new album again
How do I stop losing track of new releases?
Moving off Spotify
What actually breaks when I cancel Spotify?
Importing playlists from other services
How do I bring an existing playlist across?
Moving to a new machine
How do I migrate the whole setup without losing anything?
Sharing one library with other people
Can my family get their own recommendations from one library?
Frequently asked questions
Do I need every integration set up?
No. Most people run one download client and one playback server and skip the rest. Discover needs no credentials at all, and everything else is optional.
Can Aurral replace Lidarr entirely?
Yes. Without Lidarr, Aurral monitors artists and downloads albums and tracks into its own Downloads Folder using your download clients.
Does it work on a Raspberry Pi?
It runs anywhere Docker does. It is not CPU-heavy, but a library scan reads every changed file, so a Pi suits a moderate library better than a very large one.
How do multiple users work?
Each user gets their own listening history, feedback, blocklist and Inbox over a shared library. An admin controls permissions, sign-in mode and account status.
Compare and calculate
Aurral vs Lidarr
They are not competitors. One manages the library, the other decides what goes into it.
Aurral vs Spotify
Discovery shaped by your own history, no subscription, no DRM, and files you keep forever.
Aurral vs Navidrome
Navidrome plays. Aurral decides what to play. They sit next to each other, not on top.
Aurral vs Jellyseerr for music
Request tools wait for you to know what you want. Discovery does not.
Spotify CSV to JSON converter
Runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
Flow size calculator
Runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
Quality profile advisor
Runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
Lidarr custom list builder
Runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
One container, one port, and a library that keeps growing
You need a media path and a port. Everything else is optional and can be added later without restarting anything.