Help & Reference

How it works

When you click a title in Stremio, UsenetStreamer looks it up on your Usenet indexers, fetches matching NZB files, scores and sorts them, then hands the best results back to Stremio as stream links. The whole flow looks like this:

When you pick a stream, the NZB is sent to your download client (NZBDav or directly to your NNTP provider in Native Mode), which downloads and decodes the file so Stremio can play it.

Streaming Mode

There are two ways the addon can send content to Stremio:

Indexer Manager

An indexer manager is an app you run separately (Prowlarr or NZBHydra) that sits between UsenetStreamer and your indexers. Instead of configuring each indexer inside UsenetStreamer, you configure them once in Prowlarr or NZBHydra and point the addon at the manager.

Manager URL — the address of your Prowlarr or NZBHydra instance (e.g. http://localhost:9696). Must be reachable from wherever UsenetStreamer is running.

API Key — found in your Prowlarr or NZBHydra settings. Used to authenticate every search request the addon sends to the manager.

Indexer IDs / Names — controls which indexers inside your manager the addon is allowed to query. For Prowlarr, use the numeric indexer IDs shown in Prowlarr's indexer list, or -1 to query all Usenet indexers. For NZBHydra, type the indexer names exactly as they appear in Hydra (case-sensitive).

I have paid subscriptions with — enter the names or IDs of indexers where you have an active paid plan. This tells the addon which results to prioritise during health checks — only these indexers are checked, so your check slots are never wasted on free sources.

Grab limits per indexer — controls how many results from each paid indexer are used for health checks. Enter the limits in the same order as the indexer list, comma-separated (e.g. 2,2 means 2 results from the first indexer and 2 from the second). Default is 6 per indexer if left empty.

Strict ID match — when enabled, the addon only searches by IMDB/TVDB/TMDb IDs and skips text-based fallback searches. This reduces noise from irrelevant results but may miss content that isn't in the ID databases.

Direct Newznab Indexers

Instead of routing through a manager app, you can add up to 20 Usenet indexers directly. Each indexer needs its Newznab API endpoint and API key — both available from your indexer's website under API settings.

• Endpoint — the base URL of the indexer's Newznab API (e.g. https://indexer.example.com)
• API Key — your personal key from the indexer's account settings
• Paid — mark this if the indexer is a paid subscription. This affects two things: (1) during deduplication, results from paid indexers are kept over free ones for the same release; (2) during health checks, paid indexer results are moved to the front of the verification queue so your limited check slots (2, 4, or 6) are used on the most reliable sources first. If you only health-check 2 candidates, you want those 2 to come from your paid indexers — not random free ones.

Easynews

Easynews is a Usenet provider with its own built-in web search. When enabled, UsenetStreamer queries Easynews directly using your account credentials alongside your normal indexers. Results are merged into the same sorted list.

• Requires an active Easynews subscription
• Treat as indexer — when on, Easynews results are scored and sorted together with NZB results from your other indexers

Sorting

You build your own sort order by checking the dimensions you care about and numbering them in priority order. The addon sorts results by your first checked dimension, then breaks ties using the second, and so on.

Preferred settings — each "Preferred X" field only has an effect when its matching sort dimension is checked. For example: Preferred Qualities does nothing unless Quality is in your sort order. This lets you keep a dimension active without personal preferences, or disable a dimension entirely while keeping your preferences saved for later.

Filtering

Filters remove unwanted results before they reach Stremio.

Deduplication

The same NZB post is often indexed by multiple indexers. Deduplication keeps only one copy so your stream list isn't full of identical entries from different sources.

Two results are considered the same release if they share the same normalised title, the same Usenet group, and were posted within 14 days of each other. When duplicates are found, the addon keeps the best one:

1. A result from a paid indexer beats a result from a free one.
2. If both are paid (or both free), the one with fewer files wins — fewer files usually means it's a single clean NZB rather than a split set.

Turn deduplication off if you want to see every copy from every indexer — useful for debugging or if you have indexers with different retention.

Cache

The addon caches search results for 72 hours by default. When the same title is requested again within that window, the cached results are returned immediately instead of hitting your indexers again — making repeat searches much faster.

Saving your settings clears the cache. Every time you click Save Changes in the Control Panel, all cached results are wiped. This means your next search will always fetch fresh results with your updated settings applied.

Stream Names & Display

You can customise the label that appears for each stream in Stremio using template tokens. The admin panel has a live preview so you can see exactly what your pattern produces before saving.

Common tokens: resolution, size, indexer, encode, language, age, files.

Health Checks (NNTP Triage)

Before showing you a stream link, UsenetStreamer can verify the NZB is actually available and complete on your Usenet provider's servers. It does this by connecting directly to your provider over NNTP and checking whether the article headers still exist — an expired or corrupt post will fail this check.

You need to supply your NNTP server credentials (host, port, TLS on/off, username, password) — the same ones you use in SABnzbd or NZBGet.

Max Candidates (2 / 4 / 6) — your sorted result list can have dozens of entries, but checking all of them would be slow. This setting controls how many of the top results actually get health-checked. The addon picks from that pool and only verifies up to this many NZBs per request.

The key insight: results from paid indexers are always moved to the front of that pool, so your limited check slots are used on the most reliable sources first. If you set Max Candidates to 2 and have results from a paid indexer and several free ones, the 2 paid results are checked — not random free ones.

Max Connections — how many simultaneous NNTP connections to open when running checks. More connections = faster parallel checking, but uses more of your provider's connection allowance. Keep this at or below your provider's connection limit.

Stream Protection

Stream Protection controls what happens when you click a stream link — specifically, how the addon guards against playing a result that will fail mid-download.

Prefetch First Verified — when enabled, as soon as the first candidate passes its health check the addon starts downloading it in the background, even before you click. This shaves off the initial buffering delay when you do click that stream.

Smart Play

Smart Play is the highest level of stream protection. When you click a result, the addon runs a full health check across the top candidates, picks the one most likely to play successfully, and sends that to your download client.

NZBDav

NZBDav is a separate application you run alongside UsenetStreamer. It receives NZB files from the addon, downloads them from Usenet, and exposes the decoded video file over WebDAV so Stremio can stream it directly.

• NZBDav URL — the address of your NZBDav instance (e.g. http://localhost:3000). This is used by the addon to push NZB files to NZBDav.
• API Key — from NZBDav's settings, used to authenticate push requests from the addon
• WebDAV URL / User / Pass — how Stremio connects to NZBDav to stream the file after it's downloaded. In most setups this is the same URL as the NZBDav URL above — only change it if you've configured NZBDav to serve WebDAV on a different address or port.
• Category — optional label applied to downloads inside NZBDav, used to organise them. The addon appends _MOVIE or _TV automatically based on content type
• History Catalog Limit — controls how many recently completed NZBDav downloads appear in your Stremio catalog for instant playback. Raising this shows more of your download history directly in Stremio without re-downloading.

Metadata Services (TMDb & TVDB)

By default the addon searches Usenet using the title Stremio provides. Enabling metadata services lets it also search by the content's database IDs (e.g. TMDb ID, TVDB ID), which produces more accurate results — especially for content with common titles or non-English names.

TMDb Search Mode — controls which title variants are used for searches. All tries every known title (English + regional). Primary only uses just the main title — faster but may miss regional releases.

TMDb Additional Languages — lets the addon search using titles in additional languages. Useful if you watch content where the native-language title returns better results on your indexers.

Tokens & Security

UsenetStreamer uses two separate tokens to control access:

Your manifest URL is the URL you paste into Stremio to install the addon. It contains the stream token as part of the path. If you ever need to revoke access, change the stream token and reinstall the addon in Stremio with the new URL.