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User Guide
How to use Moonfin day to day: the player on touch, remote and keyboard, Live TV, casting, requests, downloads, Kids Mode, and making the app look the way you want. For the first-time setup see Getting Started.
Every setting mentioned here can also be found by typing its name into the search box at the top of Settings.
| Do this | What happens |
|---|---|
| Tap the video | Show or hide the controls |
| Double tap the right half | Skip forward (30 seconds by default) |
| Double tap the left half | Skip back (10 seconds by default) |
| Slide up or down on the left half | Screen brightness |
| Slide up or down on the right half | Volume |
| Tap the lock icon | Lock the controls so a stray touch does nothing. Long press the lock to unlock |
The skip amounts are under Playback & SyncPlay > Video Playback Preferences > Skip Forward Length and Skip Back Length. The swipes can be turned off there too (Volume and Brightness Swipes).
| Button | What happens |
|---|---|
| Left / Right | Skip back or forward by the skip length. Keep pressing and the jumps get bigger. Hold to scrub with a preview of where you'll land |
| Up / Down | Show the controls and focus the progress bar |
| OK / Select | Play or pause when the controls are hidden, otherwise activates the highlighted button |
| Play/Pause | Play or pause |
| Rewind / Fast forward | Skip back or forward |
| Hold Pause (remotes with a separate pause button) | Play at 2x speed while held, back to normal on release |
| Next / Previous track | Next or previous episode in the queue |
| Back | Hide the controls first, then leave the player |
| Menu (Apple TV) | Same as Back |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Space or K | Play or pause |
| Left Arrow or J | Skip back (default 10 seconds). Hold for bigger jumps |
| Right Arrow or L | Skip forward (default 30 seconds). Hold for bigger jumps |
| Up / Down Arrow | Volume up or down |
| M | Mute or unmute |
| F | Toggle fullscreen |
| C | Subtitles off, or put the last track back on. With nothing to put back, the subtitle picker opens |
| I | Show the stream information overlay (codec, bitrate, resolution) |
| Shift+I | mpv statistics, on Windows |
| , and . | Step the playback speed down or up |
| H | Exit playback |
| Escape | Exit fullscreen first, then exit playback |
| Enter | Show player controls if hidden, or play and pause if visible |
| Media keys | Play and pause, stop, next or previous item, and rewind or fast forward by the skip length |
| ? or F1 | Show the keyboard shortcuts without leaving the player |
App-wide: Escape or Backspace goes back (or home when there's nothing to go back to), Enter activates the focused item, F11 or Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen, Ctrl+Q quits, and ? or F1 lists the shortcuts that work on the screen you're on. On a computer the full list, including the book and comic reader keys, is also under Settings > About > Keyboard shortcuts.
- In the player, use the Audio Track and Subtitle Track buttons.
- Before pressing Play, the movie or episode page also lets you choose the tracks, handy on a TV.
- If audio or subtitles are slightly out of step, the player has delay controls for each.
- The default language and whether subtitles show at all are under Playback & SyncPlay > Subtitle Preferences. Size, position and colors are under Subtitle Customization. The text, its outline and the background each pick from fifteen colors, and Separate HDR Style gives HDR films a dimmer style of their own.
- Playback speed has its own button in the player. On a keyboard use , and . and on a TV hold Pause for a quick 2x.
- Skip Intro and Skip Credits buttons appear when the server knows where those segments are. Under Playback & SyncPlay > Automation & Queue you can make each segment type skip on its own, and choose whether the buttons hide themselves.
- Next Up counts down at the end of an episode. The same Automation & Queue screen controls autoplay and the still-watching check.
- Cinema Mode plays trailers or pre-rolls before a film, when the server provides them.
Playback & SyncPlay > Video Playback Preferences > Player Buttons lets you show, hide and reorder every button in the player, separately per device type. Progress Bar Time sets what the six time slots around the progress bar show: time elapsed, total duration, time remaining, the clock time the film ends at, the current time, or nothing.
Open Live TV from its library tile, or turn on Personalization > Navigation > Show Live TV Button to put it in the navigation bar. It has the Guide, Recordings and Schedule.
- The guide opens on the channel you watched last. Pick a program to watch it or record it.
- On a TV remote, Rewind and Fast forward page up and down the channel list a screenful at a time.
- If you've wandered off through the guide, Back first jumps you to that channel and the current time. Press it again to leave.
While a channel plays, press Up, or pick the Channels button next to Guide in the player controls. A strip of channel cards opens along the bottom, showing what's on each one now.
- Left and right move through the channels in the same order as the guide, and wrap around from the last channel to the first.
- OK tunes to the highlighted channel. Back closes the strip.
- It closes by itself after two minutes without a press.
The Guide button opens the full guide over the picture instead.
- Open a movie or episode and tap the Cast button, or tap it inside the player.
- Pick a device. Moonfin lists Google Cast devices (Android and desktop), AirPlay devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac), DLNA receivers, and under Remote Playback any other Jellyfin app signed in to your server.
- A small player bar controls what's playing on the other screen: play, pause, seek, volume, and Stop.
You can also steer another Jellyfin app on your network without playing anything from your device:
- Tap your avatar in the top toolbar and choose Remote Control.
- Pick a device. Each shows its name, what it's playing, and a device type icon.
- Send it commands: play something on it, pause, stop, change volume, or seek.
Advanced: what has to be true for this to work
- Works with desktop clients, mobile apps, web players, smart TV apps, and other Jellyfin-compatible players.
- The target device must be registered with your Jellyfin server, online, and connected to the same server instance.
- You must have playback permission for the content.
It works the other way round too. Moonfin shows up in the remote control list of other Jellyfin apps, and from there they can pause it, seek, change or mute the volume, and switch audio and subtitle tracks. On a TV they can also move around the menus with the direction buttons, and on a computer they can toggle fullscreen.
This needs Seerr connected in the Moonbase server plugin by whoever runs your server. Then:
- Go to Settings > Integrations > Seerr and sign in. Jellyfin as the account type uses your normal server login.
- Search for something that isn't in your library. It opens the same page as anything you already have, with a Request button (and Request 4K if your server offers it).
- Under Requests you can see the status of everything you asked for, with a progress bar while it downloads, and Cancel Request if you change your mind.
The same Seerr screen in Settings turns on discovery rows for the home screen (Trending, Popular, Upcoming, Recently Added) and notifications when a request is approved or arrives.
Open a movie, episode, album or book and tap Download. Seasons and albums have Download All. Once you've saved something, a Downloads entry shows up in the navigation. It lists everything you saved, has an Active Downloads tab for what's still coming in, and plays with the same controls as streaming. Full details, including quality presets and where the files go, are on the Downloads page.
On Android TV the download buttons are off until you turn on Playback & SyncPlay > Offline Downloads > Enable offline downloads.
To keep a show topped up, open the series and choose Auto-download new episodes from its download menu. Moonfin then fetches new episodes as they arrive. The rules live in the Automatic downloads section of Playback & SyncPlay > Offline Downloads:
- Keep unwatched episodes sets how many unwatched episodes of each show stay downloaded.
- Delete downloaded episodes removes the ones you've watched, right away, a day later, a week later, or never.
- Check in the background lets the system look for new episodes while Moonfin is closed. Check now looks straight away.
- Followed series lists every show you follow, with Stop following on each.
- Open any movie or episode page.
- Find the Subtitles section.
- Tap the download icon next to the track you want.
Downloaded subtitles are saved with your media and work offline. This needs the OpenSubtitles plugin on the server.
Advanced: telling similar tracks apart
Each search result carries badges under its name saying what it actually is: SDH, AI Translated, Machine Translated, and the frame rate it was timed against. That lets you tell two similarly named tracks apart before downloading either. Synchronized timing is preserved during download, and you can pick your preferred format (SRT, ASS, VTT) from what your server offers.
Everything below is under Settings > Personalization.
| You want to change | Go to |
|---|---|
| Colors and overall look | General Style > App Theme. The Theme Store has community themes, Saved themes keeps the ones you liked, and OLED Mode gives true blacks |
| How big everything is | General Style > UI Scaling: Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large, or Grandparents for the biggest text and buttons |
| Where the navigation bar sits and what's on it | Navigation: Left Sidebar, Top Bar or Bottom Bar, plus which buttons show, such as Downloads and admin messages |
| The big banner at the top of Home | Media Bar: six styles or off, trailer autoplay, trailer sound |
| Which rows are on Home and in what order | Home Screen > Home Sections. Per Row Image Type Selection picks posters or thumbnails per row |
| How a movie or show page is laid out | Details Screen > Details Screen Style (see below). Action Buttons picks which buttons appear there and Metadata Row what the line of details under the title shows |
| Which libraries show up at all | Libraries > Library Visibility |
| A screensaver, seasonal effects, theme music, the loading animation | Their own entries under Personalization. The screensaver is on TVs only |
Moonbase users get most of these synced between their devices.
| Style | What you get |
|---|---|
| Classic | Everything centered in one stack |
| Modern | Cinematic, with tabs for cast and extras. This is the default |
| Spotlight | A big hero image with Play and a few buttons up front, and the rest under More Actions. Cast, chapters, seasons and similar titles sit on summary cards that open a pop-up grid |
| Nouveau | Full screen, with every section stacked down the page instead of behind tabs |
| Minimalist | Artwork, one play button and the episodes. It covers movies, shows, seasons, episodes and videos, and anything else, such as a person or an album, opens in Spotlight |
Spotlight and Minimalist show playlists in the Modern layout.
Under Settings > Account & Security:
- PIN Code: Enable PIN Code, then choose whether a PIN is needed to open your account at all. Change or remove it here too.
- Blocked Ratings: tick a rating to block it and everything stronger. Blocking PG-13, for example, also blocks TV-14 at the same level and R, TV-MA and NC-17 above it. Ratings Moonfin can't place on that scale are listed under Only blocks itself and block just that one rating.
- Kids Mode: see below.
A blocked title is hidden everywhere: home rows, the media bar, search, libraries, folders, favorites and suggestions. Episodes go by their show's rating. If you reach one anyway, say through a link, you get a padlock and "This isn't available" instead of the page, and it won't play. Titles with no rating at all are never hidden. Blocked ratings are kept per server and per user on this device, and they don't sync to your other devices.
Kids Mode strips Moonfin back to what a child needs and puts a PIN on the way out.
- Go to Settings > Account & Security > Kids Mode.
- Pick a PIN. It's separate from your sign-in PIN, and you choose a fresh one every time Kids Mode goes on.
- Settings shrinks to a single entry, Exit Kids Mode. Pick it and enter the PIN to get the full app back.
While it's on:
- The navigation drops Seerr, Live TV, SyncPlay and the libraries button, and nothing in Settings is reachable apart from the way out.
- Home keeps your library tiles, the latest additions, and Continue Watching and Next Up merged into one row.
- Search leaves out Seerr results.
- Every movie or show opens in the Minimalist style, without ratings, the description, technical details, or buttons to download, delete or request. Trailers play inside the app instead of opening a browser or YouTube.
- After five wrong PINs, each further guess has to wait, up to 15 minutes.
Kids Mode is off by default, and it stays on the device you turned it on for rather than syncing. It doesn't hide anything by rating on its own, and Continue Watching still shows whatever anyone on the same account started. Set Blocked Ratings as well, or give each child their own server user, to keep grown-up titles out of reach on a shared TV.
Tap your avatar > Add Server. Moonfin shows all libraries together, each labeled with its server, and Continue Watching and Next Up pull from every server. Server management, including removing one, is in the same avatar menu.
The keyboard that opens for text fields on TV has a few tools beyond the letter grid:
- Caret keys (‹ and ›) move the cursor through the text, so you can fix a typo in place. Holding OK keeps the caret walking.
- Backspace: holding OK keeps deleting. On touch screens, a long press clears the whole field.
- Paste key (clipboard icon) inserts the clipboard at the cursor. Handy for server addresses or passwords copied from a password manager.
- Accents and extra symbols: keys marked with a small dot hold more characters. Hold OK on the key (or long press on touch), then pick with the direction keys.
- Suggestion chips above the keys offer recent searches, previously used usernames at sign-in, and known server addresses. Passwords never show suggestions.
- Number pad: numeric fields such as PINs and ports get a large phone-style pad.
- Layouts follow the app language, with AZERTY for French and QWERTZ for German, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Croatian, and Slovenian.
- System keyboard key hands the field to the platform keyboard, for voice input or other languages.
Or skip typing altogether: use Quick Connect to sign in (see Getting Started), and the Paste key for addresses.
- Custom mpv settings for shaders and scaling on Windows, Linux and Android: Custom mpv Configuration.
- SyncPlay, watching in sync with friends on the same server, lives in the navigation and under Playback & SyncPlay > SyncPlay.
- The admin panel (Settings > Administration) manages users, libraries, devices and logs without leaving the app, if your account is a server admin.
- Achievement Badges: if your Jellyfin server runs the Achievement Badges plugin, Settings > Integrations > Achievement Badges shows your badges, rank, quests, power-ups and the leaderboard.
Using Moonfin
Going deeper
For developers