IPTVnator - IPTV Player Application

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IPTVnator is a video player application that provides support for IPTV playlist playback (m3u, m3u8). The application allows users to import playlists using remote URLs or by uploading files from the local file system. Additionally, it supports EPG information in XMLTV format which can be provided via URL.

The application is a cross-platform, open-source project built with Electron and Angular.

⚠️ Note: IPTVnator does not provide any playlists or other digital content. The channels and pictures in the screenshots are for demonstration purposes only.

Important

Official sources only. IPTVnator is a free, open-source player — it never sells IPTV subscriptions, channels, or playlists. Websites offering "IPTVnator subscriptions/channels/premium/activated" builds are not affiliated with this project. Get the app only from the official website or GitHub Releases. See Beware of unofficial IPTVnator websites and IPTV services for details.

Features

Playlists & sources

• M3U / M3U8 playlists from local files or remote URLs 📂, with automatic updates on startup
• Xtream Codes (XC) and Stalker / Ministra (STB) portal support
• Custom "User-Agent" header per playlist

Playback

• Built-in HTML5 player (HLS.js or Video.js) with a resizable, resumable inline view
• Optional unified IPTVnator controls for HTML5, Video.js, and ArtPlayer, enabled in Settings → Playback (experimental)
• External players — MPV, VLC, and IINA on macOS (mpv.app / VLC.app bundle paths supported) (desktop)
• Embedded MPV — native mpv rendered inside the app window on macOS, Windows & Linux 🖥️ (experimental · desktop)
• Dedicated radio player for radio="true" streams 📻

Live TV & EPG

• EPG / XMLTV TV guide with a live timeline ribbon and multi-channel grid (desktop)
• TV archive / catch-up / timeshift (desktop)
• Group-based channel list, channel-number selection, and search 🔍

Movies & series (VOD)

• Redesigned two-state detail pages (browse ↔ watch) with season tabs and resume positions
• Download manager for offline movies & episodes ⬇️ (desktop)
• "Recently added" feeds and category grids with sorting & pagination

Discovery & metadata

• Global search across live TV, movies, and series (desktop)
• TMDB enrichment (opt-in, requires your own TMDB API key) — plots, cast & crew, trailers, ratings, artwork, a "Similar" rail, clickable actor pages, and a trending dashboard rail (trending rail: desktop)
• Dashboard with recently watched & continue-watching

Organization

• Per-playlist and global favorites, aggregated across all playlists ⭐
• Recently viewed / watch history
• Command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+K) that also finds and opens individual settings
• Settings search from the header search box on the Settings page

Platform

• Cross-platform desktop (Electron) and installable PWA
• Desktop auto-updater and mobile remote control (desktop)
• Docker self-hosting for the PWA + web backend
• 19 languages (translation files), light & dark themes, and keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? or Shift+/ in the workspace to open the in-app shortcuts list.

Area	Shortcut	Action
Global	Ctrl/Cmd+K	Open command palette
Global	Ctrl/Cmd+F	Open global search (desktop); on Settings, search settings
Global	Ctrl/Cmd+R	Open recently viewed in the desktop app
Global	Enter in workspace search	Submit the search; on Settings, open the best match
Global	F11	Toggle app window fullscreen in the desktop app
Navigation	Ctrl/Cmd+B	Toggle the live sidebar
Navigation	0-9	Select an M3U channel by number
Playback	Space / K	Play or pause playback
Playback	F	Toggle player fullscreen
Playback	ArrowLeft / ArrowRight	Seek VOD playback by 5 seconds
Playback	ArrowUp / ArrowDown	Adjust volume by 5%
Playback	M	Mute audio
Dialogs and lists	ArrowUp / ArrowDown	Move command palette selection
Dialogs and lists	Enter	Run the selected command or open a focused item
Dialogs and lists	Escape	Close dialogs and dismiss overlays

The desktop app can also open at its last size, maximized, or fullscreen on every launch (Settings → General → "Window on startup"), and iptvnator --fullscreen forces a single fullscreen launch for TV or HTPC autostart scripts without changing that setting.

Screenshots:

Dashboard with recently watched content	Live channels with inline player and EPG
Add playlist dialog for M3U, Xtream, and Stalker	Live category channel list
Global search across live TV, movies, and series	Manage visible live categories
Movie category grid with sorting and pagination	Recently added movies and series
VOD details with playback and download actions	Download manager
Multi-channel EPG grid	External MPV player support
Radio playback with dedicated audio player	Light theme
Application settings

Note: First version of the application which was developed as a PWA is available in an extra git branch.

Self-hosted PWA

The Docker setup builds the Angular PWA and the monorepo web backend into one image. The backend handles remote M3U parsing plus Xtream and Stalker proxy requests under /api, so a separate 4gray/iptvnator-backend container is not required for the default self-hosted flow.

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up --build -d

The application is available at http://localhost:4333. See docker/docker-compose.yml for the ready-to-run compose file and docker/README.md for environment variables, reverse proxy notes, PWA limitations, and build details.

The self-hosted image runs the browser PWA rather than the Electron desktop app: EPG/XMLTV panels, Embedded MPV, managed MPV/VLC launching, the download manager, and Electron remote-control features are not available there. If browser playback fails, copy the stream URL and open it manually in an external player such as MPV, VLC, or IINA.

Download

Download the latest version of the application for macOS, Windows, and Linux from the release page.

Alternatively, you can install the application using one of the following package managers:

Nightly builds

Every merge into master is published as a prerelease in 4gray/iptvnator-nightly. The desktop app can follow them: Settings → About → Update channel → Nightly offers each new build through the built-in updater (macOS, Windows, and the Linux AppImage). Nightly builds are untested snapshots — they may break, and their database changes are permanent, so switching back to Stable keeps the installed nightly until the next stable release is newer. Back up your playlists first, and mention the version and commit shown in About when reporting a bug from a nightly.

Homebrew

$ brew install iptvnator

Snap

$ sudo snap install iptvnator

Arch

Also available as an Arch PKG, iptvnator-bin, in the AUR (using your favourite AUR-helper, .e.g. yay)

$ yay -S iptvnator-bin

Gentoo

You can install IPTVnator from the gentoo-zh overlay

sudo eselect repository enable gentoo-zh
sudo emerge --sync gentoo-zh
sudo emerge iptvnator-bin

Linux Embedded MPV Support

Embedded MPV on Linux is experimental and currently supports x64 desktop sessions where IPTVnator runs under X11 or Xwayland. Native Wayland embedding is not supported yet. Linux package launchers request X11 with --ozone-platform=x11, so Wayland desktops still need Xwayland available.

The Linux backend starts a system mpv executable with --wid, so mpv must be installed and available on PATH. CI validates the Linux native addon and standard packages on Ubuntu 22.04, with Flatpak packaging built on Ubuntu 24.04. Expected user targets are Ubuntu/Debian .deb, Arch/Manjaro pacman, RPM distributions, and AppImage on x64 systems with X11/Xwayland plus mpv installed. Flatpak and Snap builds remain available, but embedded MPV is not announced as supported there yet because those sandboxed formats do not expose the host mpv executable to the embedded backend by default.

Troubleshooting

macOS: "App is damaged and can't be opened"

Older unsigned macOS builds may require removing the quarantine flag from the downloaded application:

xattr -c /Applications/IPTVnator.app

Alternatively, if the app is located in a different directory:

xattr -c ~/Downloads/IPTVnator.app

Linux: chrome-sandbox Issues

If you encounter the following error when launching IPTVnator:

The SUID sandbox helper binary was found, but is not configured correctly.
Rather than run without sandboxing I'm aborting now.
You need to make sure that chrome-sandbox is owned by root and has mode 4755.

Solution 1: Fix chrome-sandbox permissions (Recommended for .deb/.rpm installations)

Navigate to the IPTVnator installation directory and run:

sudo chown root:root chrome-sandbox
sudo chmod 4755 chrome-sandbox

Solution 2: Launch with --no-sandbox flag

Edit the desktop launcher file to add the --no-sandbox flag:

1. Find your desktop file location:

   • Ubuntu/Debian: ~/.local/share/applications/iptvnator.desktop
   • System-wide: /usr/share/applications/iptvnator.desktop

2. Edit the file and modify the Exec line:

   Exec=iptvnator --no-sandbox %U
   

3. Save the file and relaunch the application from your application menu.

Alternatively, you can launch IPTVnator from the terminal with the flag:

iptvnator --no-sandbox

GNU/Linux: Wayland startup failure

If IPTVnator exits on GNU/Linux with errors about failing to connect to Wayland or initialize the Ozone platform, force X11/XWayland instead:

iptvnator --ozone-platform=x11

This workaround is mainly for older or problematic Linux graphics stacks. The Snap package already includes this X11 override by default. For AppImage, direct binaries, and other Linux package formats, pass the flag manually when needed.

How to Build and Develop

Requirements:

• Node.js 22.22.3 or newer within 22.x, or 24.15.0 or newer within 24.x
• pnpm 10.33.0 (via Corepack)

The repository's .nvmrc pins the Node.js version used by CI. With nvm, run nvm install and nvm use from the repository root to use the same version for local development.

1. Clone this repository and install project dependencies:

   $ nvm install
   $ nvm use
   $ corepack enable
   $ pnpm install
   

2. Start the application:

   $ pnpm run serve:backend
   

This will open the Electron app in a separate window, while the Angular dev server will run at http://localhost:4200.

The equivalent Nx command is:

$ nx serve electron-backend

To start Electron with an empty, isolated data directory instead of your normal ~/.iptvnator folder, set IPTVNATOR_E2E_DATA_DIR for that run:

$ rm -rf .tmp/iptvnator-empty && mkdir -p .tmp/iptvnator-empty
$ IPTVNATOR_E2E_DATA_DIR="$PWD/.tmp/iptvnator-empty" pnpm run serve:backend

This redirects the SQLite database, Electron user data, and local config under the given directory. Delete that directory whenever you want a fresh empty state.

If you need startup diagnostics for a white screen or a frozen route, you can also turn on opt-in Electron tracing. These logs are written to the Electron terminal output so they still help when the renderer DevTools never open:

$ IPTVNATOR_TRACE_STARTUP=1 pnpm run serve:backend

Nx equivalent:

$ IPTVNATOR_TRACE_STARTUP=1 nx serve electron-backend

Useful narrower flags:

• IPTVNATOR_TRACE_IPC=1 logs renderer window.electron.* calls reaching the Electron bridge
• IPTVNATOR_TRACE_DB=1 logs DB worker requests and request-scoped DB events
• IPTVNATOR_TRACE_SQL=1 logs SQLite statements in both the main connection and DB worker connection
• IPTVNATOR_TRACE_WINDOW=1 logs BrowserWindow load, navigation, and unresponsive events
• IPTVNATOR_TRACE_RENDERER_CONSOLE=1 mirrors renderer console messages into the Electron terminal output

Security-sensitive network compatibility flags are opt-in:

• IPTVNATOR_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORK_URLS=1 permits strict EPG fetches from playlist metadata (x-tvg-url, url-tvg, or tvg-url) to resolve to localhost, LAN, or other private addresses. Directly configured Xtream/Stalker portals and private playlist servers remain supported without this flag. Prefer the in-app source-scoped “Allow source” action for a trusted EPG URL.
• IPTVNATOR_ALLOW_INSECURE_TLS=1 disables certificate validation for remote playlist imports and refreshes for the whole Electron process. Prefer the in-app host-scoped trust action for a trusted provider with a self-signed or otherwise invalid certificate.

If the local Nx daemon gets into a bad state before rerunning Electron, reset it:

$ pnpm nx reset

To run only the Angular app without Electron, use:

$ pnpm run serve:frontend

To see how many bytes the built web app puts on the initial load path (the number the CI ratchet guards), build it and run the measurement:

$ pnpm nx build web
$ pnpm run perf:initial-bytes

The contract behind that number is in docs/architecture/performance-journeys.md.

To benchmark the "launch to usable", "open a source" and "start playback" journeys (fresh Electron processes on a seeded profile against the local Xtream mock, exact renderer counters plus wall-clock), run:

$ pnpm run perf:journeys

The journeys, their counters and the summary written under dist/performance/journeys/ are described in docs/architecture/performance-journeys.md.

Disclaimer

IPTVnator doesn't provide any playlists or other digital content.

Trademark

The name "IPTVnator" and the IPTVnator logo are unregistered trademarks of the project owner. The MIT license covers the source code only — it does not grant rights to the name or logo. Forks and redistributions (including app-store submissions) must use a different name and their own icon. See TRADEMARK.md for details.

Developer and agent documentation

Start with the task context map to find the authoritative contract and validation for your area. Common agent rules are in AGENTS.md; Claude Code imports that same file. Development and documentation-maintenance conventions live in the agent workflow.