Getting more out of it
Never Miss a New Album Again
The gap between an artist announcing an album and it appearing in your library is where most people stop following new music. Closing it takes monitoring, a feed, and one setting that decides what happens automatically.
Monitoring is the whole mechanism
Monitoring decides what Aurral or Lidarr does on its own. It exists at artist, album and track level, and it works on one simple rule: downloading something marks it monitored.
Unmonitoring never deletes files. That separation is what makes monitoring safe to experiment with.
| Level | What monitoring means |
|---|---|
| Artist | Which of their albums download by themselves |
| Album | That album's tracks are watched and completed |
| Track | That single track is fetched, checked and upgraded |
Artist monitoring options
Every artist starts unmonitored, so nothing downloads until you choose. With Lidarr connected, choosing an option adds the artist to Lidarr with your defaults.
- All albums: every album that is not complete.
- Latest album: the newest one.
- First album: the oldest one.
- Future albums: only releases after you started monitoring.
| Option | Use when |
|---|---|
| All albums | An artist you want completely |
| Latest album | You follow them but do not need back catalogue |
| Future albums | You only want what comes next |
Aurral only looks for real releases
Without Lidarr, Aurral looks only for official albums and EPs. Singles, live albums, compilations and anything else with a secondary type are skipped.
That filter is the reason monitoring does not suddenly pull in six live albums the moment you follow a band. If you want one of those releases, request it explicitly.
The Inbox
The Inbox collects updates about your library that would otherwise need checking: albums from library artists released in the last 30 days or due in the next 90, nearby shows, news about artists you follow, and new discoveries.
It is per user. Everyone shares one library but has their own read, saved and dismissed state, so a shared server does not become a shared chore.
Aurral refreshes the Inbox once a day and checks RSS feeds every fifteen minutes.
- New releases from library artists, last 30 days or next 90.
- Upcoming shows when Ticketmaster is configured.
- News about library and recommended artists.
- New artists Discover found for you.
Release Radar and automation
A Release Radar Flow takes one track from each recent album you do not have yet. Its recipe is fixed, but its size and schedule are yours, which makes it a low-effort way to keep up with a lot of artists at once.
Because monitoring is what triggers downloads, the useful combination is broad monitoring on the artists you care about and Flows for the ones you only want occasional news about.
Frequently asked questions
Why did a single or live album not download?
Aurral only auto-monitored official albums and EPs. Anything with a secondary type is skipped deliberately, and can be requested manually.
Does unmonitoring delete my music?
No. Unmonitoring stops automatic action. Removing files is a separate, explicit action.
Can I stop Aurral upgrading one track I like as it is?
Yes. Unmonitor that track on its album page. With Lidarr managing the album, track monitoring is unavailable, so exclude it from the Wanted filter instead.
How does Aurral pick which tracklist to download?
It asks for the tracklist that most releases of the album share, in the order most of them share, which is usually the standard edition rather than a deluxe or box set.
Ready to set it up
One container and one media path is genuinely all it takes. Everything else in this page is something you add when the need appears.