A no-nonsense Jellyfin and Plex client for TV interfaces.
I wanted to watch my own Jellyfin library on the TV without a browser tab, a mouse, or an app that tries to be a whole media center. Catfyn is the result: one full-screen window you drive from the couch with arrows, OK and Back. Pick something, it plays. That's it. It plays from Plex servers too now, and if you have both, you can keep both.
- Movie and show artwork is requested at up to 4K, using the resolution your server has. Pictures are cached and decoded in the background.
- Jellyfin: it finds your server on the network by itself (even one in a container that doesn't answer the usual discovery), or you type the address, then sign in with your user name and password.
- Plex: choose Sign in with Plex and Catfyn shows a short code. Enter it at plex.tv/link on your phone or computer and you're in; if your account has several servers, you pick one. A Plex server on your network that lets you in without signing in shows up in the list as well.
- Several accounts, on one or more servers, Jellyfin and Plex mixed, and you switch between them in Settings. With both kinds, a Jellyfin | Plex switch sits next to your account button. An account can be incognito, so nothing you watch on it gets marked as watched.
- The home screen has Continue watching, Next up and the newest things in each library. Your libraries are tabs at the top.
- Series work the way you'd expect: seasons, and episodes showing what you watched and how much is left.
- Videos play in mpv, full screen, with controls made for a remote. OK shows them, OK again pauses, Left and Right skip 10 seconds. Subtitles and audio tracks are a button away, external subtitle files included, and on Jellyfin Catfyn follows your user's subtitle settings.
- When the end credits start, a card counts down to the next episode (Play now or Cancel). After three episodes in a row it asks if you're still watching. You can turn this off or change the countdown in Settings.
- It reports your progress to the server, so you can stop on the TV and carry on anywhere else. On Plex the next episode starts where Plex's credits marker says the credits begin.
What it doesn't do: music, live TV, downloads, transcoding settings, plugins. It plays video, and tries to do that well.
Grab one of these from the Releases page.
Everything is inside, mpv included, and it works on any distribution.
flatpak install --user Catfyn-<version>-x86_64.flatpak
flatpak run io.github.coderastic.CatfynIt needs the Freedesktop 25.08 runtime; if you have Flathub set up, Flatpak fetches it for you.
Also comes with its own mpv, and runs on distributions from about 2024 on (glibc 2.39 or newer, so Ubuntu 24.04, Debian 13, Fedora 40 and later). Make it executable and run it:
chmod +x Catfyn-<version>-x86_64.AppImage
./Catfyn-<version>-x86_64.AppImageThe smallest option, for people who'd rather use their distribution's mpv.
You need mpv and curl installed.
tar xf catfyn-<version>-x86_64.tar.gz
cd catfyn-<version>-x86_64
./install.sh # into ~/.local, or: sudo ./install.sh /usr/local./install.sh --uninstall removes it again.
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Arrow keys | Move |
| Enter | OK. Hold it for options (e.g. Play from start) |
| Esc or Backspace | Back. Back on the home screen closes Catfyn |
| Typing | Goes straight into text fields (server address, user name, password) |
The mouse works too: click is OK, right click is Back, the wheel scrolls.
Most TV remotes that come with a USB dongle, and most Bluetooth remotes, show up as a keyboard, so they just work. Game controllers aren't supported directly; a tool like AntiMicroX can map one to the keys above.
In the player: OK shows the controls (Pause, Subtitles, Audio, …), OK again pauses. Left/Right skip 10 s. With the controls open, Up gets you to the seek bar, where holding Left/Right skips a minute at a time. When a series episode plays there's also a Previous episode button. Back hides the controls, or stops when they're hidden. Media keys on a keyboard or remote work as you'd expect.
Settings are behind your account button at the top right: accounts (switch, add a Jellyfin or Plex server, incognito, sign out), whether the next episode plays by itself, and how long the countdown is.
Catfyn starts full screen. catfyn --windowed gives you a normal window,
which is handy on a desktop.
~/.config/catfyn/accounts.conf: your accounts and their sign-in tokens (readable only by you). Your password is never stored.~/.config/catfyn/settings.conf: autoplay, countdown, andaccent, the highlight colour (violet, periwinkle, blue, teal, green, amber, rose, red or silver).~/.cache/catfyn/: posters and pictures. Safe to delete.
The Flatpak keeps the same files under
~/.var/app/io.github.coderastic.Catfyn/ instead.
You need Rust (1.88 or newer) and, to run it, mpv and curl.
cargo build --release
./target/release/catfyn --windowedThe packages are built with the scripts in packaging/. stage.sh runs
on Debian 13 (a chroot or container is fine): it builds Catfyn and
collects mpv with the libraries it needs, so the packages run on any
distribution with glibc 2.39 or newer. The rest can run anywhere:
./packaging/stage.sh # on Debian 13: dist/stage
./packaging/tarball.sh # dist/catfyn-<version>-x86_64.tar.gz
./packaging/appimage.sh # dist/Catfyn-<version>-x86_64.AppImage (needs appimagetool)
./packaging/flatpak.sh # dist/Catfyn-<version>-x86_64.flatpak (needs the 25.08 runtime)MIT, see LICENSE. Catfyn includes the
Inter typeface, under the SIL Open Font License
(assets/fonts/LICENSE-Inter.txt). Jellyfin and Plex are trademarks of
their respective owners; Catfyn is an independent client.