Help
Settings
Radar searches for downloads that match the settings for:
- quality - a size limit for a resolution (720p, 1080p) and format (DVD, WebDL, Bluray).
- profile - a list of preferred qualities.
Qualities
The Qualities tab shows a list of size limits (gigabytes) for each format, such as DVD, WebDL, and Bluray.
Profiles
Each box in the Profiles tab shows a list of allowed qualities. For a movie that is assigned the "Any" profile, radarr will search for all qualities in the list, and choose highest match.
Click on a profile to edit it. The checkbox on each Quality shown in the Profile can be selected or deselected. This allows you to create specific quality hierarchies, and you can choose a specific profile to use on a per-movie basis.
You can re-order this list, so you can place specific qualities in any order you wish to use—with higher priority qualities at the top, and lower priority qualities at the bottom. If you want to create an "archive" quality profile for older movies you have already seen, you can place what would normally be construed as "lower quality" versions above "higher quality" versions to automatically download smaller files on titles which that "Archive" quality profile is applied to.
For example, the "Archive" quality profile shown below has lower quality versions in a custom hierarchy that will prefer 480p or DVD versions of the associated files:
Cutoff
Each profile has a "cutoff" that you can set that will stop monitoring for "better" quality versions once that cutoff has been reached.
For example, if you create a quality profile for 1080p:
The cutoff shown above is set to Blu-ray 1080p. Now a practical example: If you already have a Blu-ray 720p version in your library, when a 1080p version comes across in an RSS update, the Blu-ray 1080p version will download and replace the Blu-ray 720p version. If another RSS update happens later down the line with a Remux 1080p, since the cutoff has already been met, it will not download the Remux version. However, if Remux 1080p and Blu-ray 1080p come across in the same RSS update, since the Remux 1080p quality is active, it will prefer the Remux release. If you use Delay Profiles, there may be several RSS updates during that delay period and if a Remux version comes across in any RSS update during the delay period, it will be preferred.
You can use this logic to create specific profiles for higher quality versions of movies you want the best quality versions of, or also use it to archive older movies that you don't really care much about the quality of.
Proper Releases
A tag to consider that will always supersede "cutoff met" is when a PROPER release comes across through RSS and you have "Download Propers" activated in Settings > Media Management > File Management. This is a "hidden" setting (shown in yellow) so you must have "Hidden" settings shown to see it.
With this active, PROPER releases will always download a new copy because it is assumed that the release fixes an issue with the previous release of that movie. For example, PROPER releases usually come across when audio is found to be out of sync, or if there are visual artifacts, or other issues with the original release. If you notice that a title in your library downloaded more than one version of a movie you thought that the cutoff was met for already, it is likely because a PROPER release superseded that cutoff.
Preferred Tags
If you'd like to give a little more weight to a release without requiring it, this setting in each specific profile is for you. For example, you might prefer releases with TrueHD or DTS-HD to get the best audio, but it is okay to grab a release that doesn't have these audio tracks.
Delay Profiles
You can also set up Delay Profiles to wait to download preferred releases until after a certain time has elapsed, this will allow extra time for releases with your preferred tags or cutoffs to be released.
For example, this delay profile will wait one day to start the download, and if any releases containing your preferred tags come across it will be preferred over others that do not have the preferred tags.
Delay profiles were originally created to prefer Torrents over Usenet, or visa versa, by setting a delay before starting a download for either torrents or usenet. However, it can also be used to wait for preferred tag releases and prevent multiple successive qualities from downloading when a cutoff is unmet. For instance, if a Blu-ray 720p release comes across RSS first, and a Blu-ray 1080p version comes across RSS 2 hours later, if you have a delay profile set for more than 2 hours, only the most preferred release (in this example, we are assuming Blu-ray 1080p is preferred by the associated Quality Profile) will be sent to your download client.
Media Management
Movie Naming
Perhaps you don't like the default movie file and folder naming format. This is where you can change that, except at the time this article was written, folder name changes aren't supported. The default movie file name is {Movie Title} {(Release Year)}, but personally I prefer {Movie CleanTitle} {(Edition Tags)} {(Release Year)} {[Quality Title]}. The Sorting and Renaming article has more useful details for this setting.
Indexers
Restrictions
Maybe you want to make sure everything you get is either h.264, h.265 or a Remux. Perhaps you think YIFY is low quality and never want one of their releases. Maybe you don't want to accidentally get a 3D movie. The Restrictions area of Indexer settings is where you can configure this.
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For torrent indexers, Jackett is an excellent solution because it provides both RSS and search for a huge number of both public and private trackers. Radarr has built in support for a small number of torrent indexers, but some of them may not allow searching.
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Cardigann is currently NOT supported by Radarr and won't be until they fix this issue cardigann/#327.
Download Client
Completed Download Handling
You want to enable this and you don't want to use the Drone Factory option. This lets Radarr work with the downloader to figure out when a download succeeds or fails as well as the path to the downloaded file. The 0 in the interval disables it and you really really don't want the folder setting to point at the same folder your downloader(s) point to.
Folder Structure and Root Folders
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You need to set up Root Folders before anything else after you get Radarr running. You can do this by going to Add movies and Searching for any movie. Choose Add a different Path to configure your folders.
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Currently we only support movies in a specific folder structure:
- Valid Path:
/path/to/movies/A Clockwork Orange (1971)/A Clockwork Orange (1971).mkv - Invalid Path:
/path/to/movies/A Clockwork Orange (1971).mkvPlanned to be supported - Invalid Path:
/path/to/movies/C/A Clockwork Orange (1971)/A Clockwork Orange (1971).mkv - Invalid Path:
/path/to/movies/R/A Clockwork Orange (1971)/A Clockwork Orange (1971).mkv
- Valid Path:
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Folder renaming isn't working. Planned to be supported
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Subtitles and other files aren't moved with the movie. Planned to be supported
Two kinds of search methods: historical vs monitoring
Radar has two search methods: historical and monitoring. Monitoring identifies releases occurring after monitoring starts. Historical search finds previous releases.
Monitoring is enabled by toggling a banner icon, where a solid banner indicates monitoring is enabled. Historical search is invoked by clicking the magnifying glass icon.
If you only enable monitoring, Radarr will only download releases that occur after monitoring is enabled.
When the magnifying glass icon is clicked, a single historical search is stared; however, the historical search is filtered to include only monitored episodes. So, monitoring of the show, season or episodes must be enabled first, before historical search.
In other words, after you add a movie to Radarr, first toggle the banner to select either show, season or individual episodes, and then click the magnifying glass to start a historical search for those selections.
Note also that there is no automated backlog search (historical search for missing episodes). Instead, go to Wanted > Missing or Cutoff Unmet, and click search to invoke a backlog search.
Misc
- We use The MovieDB for gathering information. Sometimes a movie in IMDb is not TMDb, please help by contributing to TMDb and the movie will then show up in Radarr Movie Look up.
- Additional ways to help are to correct any errors you may see, or add additional titles to movies.