Play your Jellyfin library on Android TV in another app

Yonto Player plays your Jellyfin films and TV series on Android TV in a different app, with the watched marks and resume points your server already has, and you set the server up from your phone. With Pro, it also puts Plex, Emby, your NAS and your Dropbox or Box beside Jellyfin, with one search across them. The server converts what your television cannot play, and the app you use now can stay installed beside it while you decide.

The Android phone and tablet app shows the same from Jellyfin and signs in the same way, so this page holds there too, where you type into the form yourself (on a phone or tablet). On an Android phone or tablet, an iPhone or an iPad, a Jellyfin film or episode can also be downloaded to watch offline.

What Yonto Player shows from Jellyfin

Your Movies and Shows libraries, each under the name it has on your server, with posters and backdrops. In Browse, a library can be narrowed by type, genre and year, and sorted by when a title was added, its title, year or rating; on Home each library shows what was added last first, and a series moves up when a new episode arrives.
A title’s page: its description, genres, year and age rating.
A series’ episodes, grouped by season and numbered like S1E01.
Search, across the films and series your account can see on the server.
The banner at the top of Home: it leads with your best-rated films and series, by the community rating Jellyfin holds for them.

Jellyfin’s collections, playlists and home rows, such as Next Up, are not there: Yonto Player lists each library’s titles, and its own Continue playing and History.

A username and password: any account on the server, not only the administrator’s.
Or an API key and user ID, if the server’s administrator gave you them.

There is no Quick Connect code to enter. Instead, Set up from your phone shows a QR code on the TV, and you type the address, username and password on your phone. An address with no port and no https://, like 192.168.1.20, is tried as typed and on Jellyfin’s own port, 8096. Each password you save is tried once: one the server turned down is not sent again until you change it, so a wrong password costs one of the attempts after which Jellyfin locks an account, not one for every screen you open.

One source is one server and one account. To use another account, or another server, add it as another source. Play your Jellyfin library on Android TV goes through it step by step.

What carries over from the app you use now

Your library: yes. It lives on your server, and Yonto Player reads it from there.
What you watched and where you stopped: yes. Yonto Player reads the server’s watched marks and resume points, so a watched episode wears its mark and Resume picks up where you stopped. Home’s Continue playing also lists the server’s Continue Watching, and History starts empty. Next Up is not read.
What you watch in Yonto Player: the server is told. Watching in Yonto Player marks it watched on the server and moves where your other app resumes. Turn off Tell the server what I watch in the source’s editor to leave the server as it is. History on your TV and phone says where Yonto Player keeps its own.
The other app’s settings: no. They stay in that app.

Signing in with a username and password adds Yonto Player to the server’s list of devices.

What it does not do

A converted video has one audio track. Yonto Player tells the server what this device can play, and the server converts a file beyond it, such as 4K on a 1080p box or HDR on a screen without it, carrying only the file’s default audio track. Turn off Let the server convert videos in the source’s editor to always play the file as stored. On Android it decodes AC3, E-AC-3, DTS and TrueHD sound itself when the device cannot (DTS, TrueHD and Dolby audio on Android TV).
Films and TV series only. Only libraries of the Movies or Shows type are listed: music, photos, books, live TV and other kinds of library do not appear, though Search still finds a film or series kept in one.
One version of a film. A film with more than one version offers no choice between them.

What Yonto Player does not do lists the rest.

Free or Pro

A Jellyfin server is free as your one source. A second source, such as another Jellyfin server or account, a Plex server or a folder on a NAS, needs Pro. In the app on Android TV and Android phones and tablets, you can try Pro free for 7 days, once per device, with no payment details. Pro is one payment, not a subscription, for up to 5 devices, TV, phone and tablet together, and there is no Yonto account.

Try it beside the app you use now

Both apps can be installed at once. Watching in Yonto Player is told to the server, so the other app shows it watched too, unless you turn that off in the source’s editor. Try a few of your harder files too, such as 4K or HDR ones: the server converts what the television cannot play, and tone-maps HDR only when its own Enable tone mapping is on. Move from the official app to Yonto Player says more about moving, and Yonto Player and the official clients when each one fits.

If something goes wrong

Play your Jellyfin library on Android TV says what to do when the server can’t be reached or turns down the sign-in, and Troubleshooting lists every message the app shows.

Yonto Player provides no content. Jellyfin, Plex, Dolby and DTS are trademarks of their owners, and Yonto Player is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.