Your Jellyfin server. Now it's cable.

Nostalgex is a native Apple TV app that turns your Jellyfin library into live TV channels with a real channel guide. Sign in with Quick Connect, then flip around like it's Friday night in 1996.

Get it on Apple TV Try the web tuner, free

Works with Jellyfin, natively on Apple TV. Free.

The Nostalgex channel guide on Apple TV, showing a film airing on channel 3 with a full lineup of channels below

The actual app. Channels built from a real library.

Three steps. Then you're just watching TV.

  1. 01

    Point it at your server

    Open Nostalgex on the Apple TV, choose Jellyfin, and either approve it with Quick Connect or type your server address and sign in. The app talks straight to your server.

  2. 02

    Channels build themselves

    Your library gets sorted into channels automatically. Saturday morning cartoons, 90s sitcoms, the VHS vault, the stuff you rewatch constantly. No playlists to make.

  3. 03

    Start flipping

    Pull up the guide, pick a channel, or just surf. Everything is already playing, so you drop into the middle of a movie like real TV.

You self-host for a reason. Nothing leaves your house.

Typing a server password into somebody else's app is a fair thing to be suspicious about. So here is exactly what Nostalgex does with it.

  • Your server address and token are stored in the Apple TV Keychain and are never sent to us
  • Sign-in goes straight from the app to your server. We never see your username or password
  • We do not host, stream, or supply any media. Every frame comes off your own machine
  • No account to create, no ads, nothing sold to anyone
  • The app sends a short fixed list of anonymous usage events, like a channel being tuned. Never titles, library contents, or your server address
Read the privacy policy
A full Nostalgex channel guide with a grid of channels and what is airing on each

Built for watching, not browsing.

Quick Connect

Approve the Apple TV from a browser you are already signed into on your Jellyfin server. No typing a long password with the remote.

Your collections become channels

A collection on your server turns into its own channel, sitting alongside the hundred-plus that Nostalgex builds from genres, eras and franchises.

Subtitles and audio tracks

Pick a subtitle and audio language once and the app remembers it. Files with several audio tracks behave the way you would expect.

Over a hundred channels

Sorted into 13 bundles you can switch on and off. Turn the whole kids bundle off, or keep only the decades.

Plays your file as-is

Direct play when the Apple TV can decode it, and it only falls back to transcoding when it has to. Movies split across two files play straight through as one programme.

Native on Apple TV

A real tvOS app from the App Store, built for the Siri Remote and the big screen. Not a web view pretending.

No Apple TV? There's a free web tuner.

The same channels, running in any browser. It is the fastest way to see what this is before installing anything.

One caveat worth knowing up front. Browsers block a secure page from talking to a plain http server, so the web tuner needs your Jellyfin server on an https address. If yours is http on the local network, use the Apple TV app instead. It has no such restriction.

Open the web tuner

Quick answers.

Does Nostalgex work with Jellyfin?

Yes, natively. The Apple TV app talks to Jellyfin directly, the same way it talks to Plex and Emby. There is no bridge, no middleman service, and no Plex account involved.

Do I have to type my password with the remote?

No. Jellyfin's Quick Connect is supported, so you approve the Apple TV from a browser that is already signed in. Typing a server address and password still works if you prefer it.

Does it change anything on my server?

It reads your library to build the channels. It never adds, renames, moves or deletes anything.

Do I pick what plays on each channel?

No, and that's on purpose. Nostalgex reads your library and builds the channels and schedules itself. The surprise of "oh, this is on" is the product.

What do I need?

An Apple TV running tvOS 18 or later, and a Jellyfin server you can reach from it. That's the whole list. The app is free.

All three servers. Natively.

Cable's back. Now on Apple TV.

Free, native, and built for the couch.

Get it on Apple TV Open the web tuner