Bringing all of your personal media together into one place is easy with Emby! Emby unites your personal videos, music, and photos and streams them to your devices.
Get the free Emby Server at https://emby.media (required as part of your Emby install).
• Emby automatically converts your media on-the-fly to play on any device.
• Emby organizes your media into an elegant display with artwork, rich metadata and related content.
• Easily share your media with friends and family.
• Rich parental control and management features allow you to easily control access for your entire family.
• Watch Live TV and manage your DVR (with supported TV Tuner)
This app is free to browse your media collection and cast to other devices. Playback requires either a one-time in-app purchase, or an active Emby Premiere subscription. Other premium features such as downloading require an Emby Premiere subscription.
Edit: a year later and very little improvement. Downloads broken. PiP doesn’t allow skipping to next episode. Fast forward and RW seems to be fixed. Very buggy. Pip breaks all the time, fast forwarding and rewinding works very poorly. Video stops playing randomly at times and requires the app be forced closed. If you play a video and back out you continue to see the loading icon until you force restart the app. Expected a lot more from the app.
I made the switch from Plex to Emby and I doubt I’ll go back. Emby is easy to customize, user friendly, and has yet to crash on me. The only issue I’ve had was configuring the remote access for devices outside my network. After doing some research and making tweaks to my router and firewall I’ve gotten it to work. Since then my server has been working like a dream. All in all I’ve been very pleased with the media server and would recommend it to anyone. 9/10
So the app has gotten much better over time, but now the only thing that’s not working 100% is casting music. I have a chromecast music and I’m trying to use emby on my phone to control my music from my server to the chromecast at home and the app is buggy. Sometimes the gui controls disappear and all that shows is the album art, or if I want to switch from an album to shuffling all songs I have to restart the app to work right. So close to being perfect.
Would love to give you guys 5 stars because I love Emby! But the “edit images” feature only allows you to delete the thumbnail and make it black. It doesn’t allow you to change the image like it does on my PC version. If you guys fix this I will change my review to 5 stars and tell you what I love about this app. Thanks! Other than that, Emby rocks! I love it!
I like this better than plex because it is less full of forced changes. I really wanted this to be my one stop shop for everything. However, music and podcasts need some work. Music: – If I am out running with my phone and listening to music via bluetooth, the audio will play slowly with a chop. This is reproduced by fast forwarding and going backwards a lot. The music is downloaded so we can probably rule out slow server. – The avrcp “back” command plays the previous track while a track is playing. All other music players restart the track with additional commands required to go back a song. – Emby does not gracefully handle switching between wifi and cellular networks. I often have to kill the app and restart it to get it working. – There does not appear to be any caching of the session. Loading on the cellular network can be very painful. Podcasts: – Plex is actually better here. You have to find and enable the plugin. – You have to dig up the RSS instead of having a list like plex does. For less common podcasts in plex you also have to use this process to be fair. Emby has zero podcast findability. – Some RSS feeds seem to do their cover art incorrectly, at least according to emby. Stuff you should know is an example where generic art is filled in. – There’s no way to apply cover art to all podcasts, at least not that I could find. I’m not really interested in editing each one by hand. Again, plex actually does this better. Movies and TV Shows? No complaints. This works well and I find editing the data much easier in emby than plex. Audiobooks. I think you can hack something together for plex, but I have this set up and I like it quite a bit. I have this set to default to folder view because the regular view seems to be set up generically for music and m4b files do not have this data. I guess that’s a quip for audiobooks.
Wasted so much time and money on plex. Emby is the ideal alternative that is way, WAY easier to use and maintain. Had an issue with remote connectivity which was resolved in less than 10 seconds after my port was forwarded. Ty again for this GEM of system and software. 3 days left on my trial and ill be deciding which route to go to support your efforts.
New emby server setup at home with account. That works ok, but none of the apps can connect to it after login … tried android for tablets and phones… always fails to connect … try later. I found the account mail and re-verified my account and apps connected and all is well with my evaluation. Plex was far worse … very slow, poor UI, and terrible support.
It just keeps crashing. I can recall the same thing happening a while ago. Back then I just took a long break from Emby and went back to Plex. This time I’ll probably go in a different direction. In any event, it looks like Emby is done with _me_ for now. Sad, because the server really has been such a good product. But the whole point of Premium is connecting remotely. If I can’t do that then it’s time to move on.
Great app and great media server. It works exactly as it should. I recently switched over from Plex which was non stop issues for me so finding Emby is such a huge relief. There’s definitely room for improvement with regards to UI but the app is still great in it’s current form. I would recommend a cleaner material UI for the app and emby server. And also the ability to see the upcoming videos in my playlist would be a great added feature.
This app is much better than Plex. I actually have both media servers running on my home network and Emby is much easier to configure the interface and background shots are beautiful. I find that managing Plex is more confusing and complicated on the back end. Emby has similar features but is easier to navigate configure and use.
some good some not so good. i swapped to emby from plex about a month ago due to something’s i was not liking about plex. i really like that there’s native audiobook support. as far as the app goes its ok. i keep having to force stop it because i keep getting a blank page if i run it in the background and then try to reopen. I’ve noticed emby is also slower to load than plex but im still tinkering around with it.
I have used Emby for a long time, and I would have given it five stars if it was working on all of my devices. The issue is with the android app on my Samsung tablet. When launched, the app shows a grey screen and continually errors with a popup telling me that the app has stopped. I’ve tried uninstalling and cleaning out any leftover files, but nothing I do fixes the issue. It still works on all other devices I’ve tried, including Samsung phones. It stopped working 11/11 on the tablets.
This app (& service) would be amazing, if not for two unbelievably annoying issues: 1) unlike any mobile video player I’ve ever used, it just ignores the rotation of the device – even when locked – & always forces itself into landscape, making it frustrating & disorienting if you ever need to multitask. 2) If you want any listing mode other than the default (ie list rather than giant images), you have to keep setting it over & over & over for every separate directory.
Long time Plex user, finally got tired of the bloat. While Emby could use a bit more polishing, it is a refreshing crisp clean media server without the massive push to commercial content. I feel kinda cleaner now.. Thank you. Update After working with the system for a while now I find it is exceptionally responsive and sprinkled everywhere are incredible useful usability features. Subscribed. Kudos.
Emby is a great media server and streaming solution! I’ve used it on a variety of laptops and phones, and it works great and I find it easy to set up. UPDATE: I recently got a Chromebook, and it seems like the app for the Chromebook should downmix the audio to stereo, but it doesn’t seem to be doing that. The app works flawlessly on Android smartphones, but the Chromebook loses audio channels.
In overall happy with this app and server. I rely on it over plex though I use both since I have friends dependent on plex. I use emby for my personal use. I’m taking one star off because lately, the Android app crashes when I play a Playlist. I can get 1 track/episode to play without a problem on my phone, but once the second starts, the app crashes.
I’ve mostly used this in combination with my dumb TV connected to chromecast. I have a a premier subscription. I have a Hauppauge TV capture which has replaced my whole home DVR system. The quality of application and delivery is equal to any streaming service I have. There are some bugs when casting from my android to chromecast. I have to reset android to cast to it. Also while, casting fine tuning ie. FF or rewind the options don’t work I can on they use the slider.
I notice alot of people push blame on the APP other then maybe their server isnt setup right. anyhow, Yeah the APP needs some improvement, but if your server is tight, then the app will work right. I do hope they will allow the app to support VR. since I do watch alot of 3D movies. and the network setup for remote connections needs improvement big time. DLNA needs to work better. other then that. its great.. better then PLEX for me.
too many bugs. some functions are good in old version. but it may be bugs in new version. it is wore than many open source projects. the play queue function dont work. if you add new song. it will clear old queue list. when you play video or photo that you record by your phone on TV, if record in vertical, it will not play properly. and more bugs. I regret paying $99. I may switch to PLEX
Doesn’t list file names. Doesn’t allow for Explorer style file access via the network. This is unusable for any TV series as file names contain season & episode. If you have several cuts of the same movie you have no idea which file will play. So instead of serious simple & highly functional app you went with ‘pretty but almost useless’. You need less glitz & more basic function.
Love this server/client setup. The features in it all are amazing. And they work! I paid for the lifetime Premier license not for the premium features, but because I feel good about supporting this team. Although I must admit I do like the new Skip Intro feature am awful lot. I like the UI better than Kodi, and this beats Playon’s media server by miles.
Good UI but bad UX. This app has failed identifying my library. I have to do manual identification. The UI is much better than Plex.
Works as expected for media payback. However, even with current update still get the wonky colors direct stream live TV.
App has annoying prompt everytime you want to watch a channel. Doesn’t allow for a seamless experience switching channels. If I want to get the prompt maybe I could hold select for it? Will give 5 star review if you fix.
Paying for Premiere but the server needs to be always online for the licence to work. So the premiere licence is worthless if you are without internet, even if you are watching on the same network offline
Continuously stops play, won’t resume and crashes – this app isn’t improving unfortunately.
Excellent! Tested with Dolby Atmos & DTS:X demonstration discs. Good format support and smooth play even on wifi networks with low throughput. Very good communication between server and client. Highly recommend! 👍
HEVC 10 bit, h264 with high profile 4.0 – 5.1 format doesn’t works with android smart tv (fe. AQUOS, COOCA). tesed in many android tv branded, and result still similar. Please fixed it.. Because in the older versions of apk / server, the all formats was working fine.
Great app, it just needs Replay button in Music Player please 🙇♂️
I really like Emby and this app as well, but I have a problem (using Android 8.1.0). When I play an episode of a tv series with a theme song by casting it on a (for example) chromecast, the theme song doesn’t stop!! It’s quite annoying and I think it isn’t supposed to happen. Obviously I disabled the function from the menu. That said, the app is really well done, thank you!
I love this app, I use it daily. Its an excellent way to keep all your media organized and easily accessable. Its kinda like having your own personal netflix! Although I miss the skip episode feature, I used to be able to skip back an episode, but the skip back button seems to be missing on the s9 version. In addition I miss having the ability to swipe up and down on each half of the screen to adjust the volume and brightness of a video. Please bring back these features!
Used to be all right, not perfect, but it played a show from beginning to end. Not without several interruptions but we managed. Haven’t been able to get it to work in weeks. Whatever I turn on, it plays for about 15 seconds, then inexplicably freezes, and no matter how many times I restart the app or refresh the server or remove/re-add the file—whatever attempt I make to start over—I can never play that video at all again. It just sits there “loading” forever. Profoundly useless.
App works fine, nice layout. However, I have to sign in every single time (even though I’ve check the ‘remember me’ box). This is extremely annoying and most of the time I just don’t use emby for this reason. It takes so long to enter my email and password 1 letter at a time on my smart tv. Also, the movies etc I watch via the app, almost always buffer. I’ve ensured my internet is flawless. I always get around 60-70mbps.
I found Emby after encountering constant playback issues using Plex. It’s simple and works as intended for the most part so I’m happy, but it’s not without its issues. Say when I’m streaming a TV series using Chromecast, there are times where I need to disconnect from Chromecast completely first then connect again in order for me to move on to play the next episode. If I don’t do that, the next episode rather than being casted onto the TV, will play on the device (phone) instead.
Android version of this app is SO frustrating! Won’t close down in background even when closing all apps. Trying to resume a programme where you left off? Don’t bother. Never works. Spinning donut of death every single time. Same account connected to same servers works perfectly on a firestick and Roku TV. I am running current version of Android with all updates installed. I don’t know what you can do to sort this app, but you need to do something!
Having had so many issues with Kodi on my TV (slow sync, storage), this is exactly what I was looking for and more. So fast, so versatile and easy to set up. Very impressed. I’m just waiting for an message popping up saying my trial has expired, just can’t imagine this is actually free.
Slow search, needs improving, not sure how the results are gathered and organized, it doesn’t seem to have a specific logic of displaying them. The search function is or isn’t case sensitive, it does or it doesn’t consider spaces between words, but it seems not to properly work beyond 2 words. Playing videos is ok, but don’t change subtitles while playing, it will freeze the video while the audio still goes, one might have to force stop the app unless it gets back on track.
Direct stream of AV1 content is stuttering, it is unwatchable.
A decent media player, and if you only want to play movies, then it is fine, but if you ever want to fix any of the errors it makes in identifying films, then look elsewhere. On my high (ish) res 10″ tablet I get a full 1.5cm to see what I’m typing and even then the UI insists on scrolling the input field until it is out of view so I have guess what I’m typing. And all the overdone on-screen furniture wastes space too. Forget my using my 7″ tablet! Not everyone has a 32″ 4K screen available.
I was running fine for months. Great app great streaming server. Unfortunately as of the latest version updated 24 March 2019 I am having problems with the client running on OdroidC2 devices only. All videos suddenly are out of sync and slow. The browser version via chrome does not have the same behaviour. I eventually downgraded to an older version by getting the apk from a 3rd party site. It is now working fine again. Maybe something changed on the latest release specifically hardware support for OdroidC2?