IPTVnator is a cross-platform IPTV player application designed for streaming IPTV content by supporting m3u and m3u8 playlists.
Key Features:
Supports playback of IPTV playlists (m3u, m3u8) with seamless integration.
Offers favorites management to easily bookmark frequently watched channels.
Includes a TV guide for scheduling and live channel browsing.
Provides TV archive/catch-up functionality to access missed content.
Multi-language support for global accessibility.
Parental controls to restrict access to mature content.
Can be installed via winget for easy setup on supported systems.
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for IPTV users seeking a reliable, feature-rich application to enjoy live TV and archived content with enhanced customization and control.
IPTVnator is a video player application that provides support for IPTV playlist playback (m3u, m3u8). The application allows users to import playlists using remote URLs or by uploading files from the local file system. Additionally, it supports EPG information in XMLTV format which can be provided via URL.
The application is a cross-platform, open-source project built with Electron and Angular.
⚠️ Note: IPTVnator does not provide any playlists or other digital content. The channels and pictures in the screenshots are for demonstration purposes only.
Features
M3u and M3u8 playlist support 📺
Radio playlist support with dedicated audio player 📻
Xtream Code (XC) and Stalker portal (STB) support
External player support - MPV and VLC; macOS accepts mpv.app / VLC.app bundle paths. IINA can be launched via its executable path on macOS (best-effort: controls and position polling are MPV IPC only)
Add playlists from the file system or remote URLs 📂
Read-only M3U channel details from channel context menus, including favorites and recently viewed
Favorite channels management
Global favorites aggregated from all playlists
Recently viewed live channel removal from row actions and context menus
HTML video player with HLS.js support or Video.js-based player
Internationalization with support for 16 languages:
Arabic
Moroccan arabic
English
Russian
German
Korean
Spanish
Chinese
Traditional chinese
French
Italian
Turkish
Japanese
Dutch
Belarusian
Polish
Custom "User Agent" header configuration for playlists
Light and Dark themes
Docker image available for self-hosting the PWA and web backend together
Keyboard shortcuts
Press ? or Shift+/ in the workspace to open the in-app shortcuts list.
Area
Shortcut
Action
Global
Ctrl/Cmd+K
Open command palette
Global
Ctrl/Cmd+F
Open global search in the desktop app
Global
Ctrl/Cmd+R
Open recently viewed in the desktop app
Global
Enter in workspace search
Submit the current search
Navigation
Ctrl/Cmd+B
Toggle the live sidebar
Navigation
0-9
Select an M3U channel by number
Playback
Space / K
Play or pause embedded MPV playback in the desktop app
Playback
F
Toggle embedded MPV fullscreen in the desktop app
Playback
ArrowLeft / ArrowRight
Seek embedded MPV playback by 5 seconds in the desktop app
Playback
ArrowUp / ArrowDown
Adjust volume by 5%
Playback
M
Mute audio
Dialogs and lists
ArrowUp / ArrowDown
Move command palette selection
Dialogs and lists
Enter
Run the selected command or open a focused item
Dialogs and lists
Escape
Close dialogs and dismiss overlays
Screenshots:
Dashboard with recently watched content
Live channels with inline player and EPG
Add playlist dialog for M3U, Xtream, and Stalker
Live category channel list
Global search across live TV, movies, and series
Manage visible live categories
Movie category grid with sorting and pagination
Recently added movies and series
VOD details with playback and download actions
Download manager
Multi-channel EPG grid
External MPV player support
Radio playback with dedicated audio player
Light theme
Application settings
Note: First version of the application which was developed as a PWA is available in an extra git branch.
Self-hosted PWA
The Docker setup builds the Angular PWA and the monorepo web backend into one
image. The backend handles remote M3U parsing plus Xtream and Stalker proxy
requests under /api, so a separate 4gray/iptvnator-backend container is not
required for the default self-hosted flow.
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up --build -d
The application is available at . See
docker/docker-compose.yml for the ready-to-run
compose file and docker/README.md for environment
variables, reverse proxy notes, PWA limitations, and build details.
The self-hosted image runs the browser PWA rather than the Electron desktop app:
EPG/XMLTV panels, Embedded MPV, managed MPV/VLC launching, the download manager,
and Electron remote-control features are not available there. If browser
playback fails, copy the stream URL and open it manually in an external player
such as MPV, VLC, or IINA.
Download
Download the latest version of the application for macOS, Windows, and Linux from the release page.
Alternatively, you can install the application using one of the following package managers:
Homebrew
$ brew install iptvnator
Snap
$ sudo snap install iptvnator
Arch
Also available as an Arch PKG, iptvnator-bin, in the AUR (using your favourite AUR-helper, .e.g. yay)
Embedded MPV on Linux is experimental and currently supports x64 desktop
sessions where IPTVnator runs under X11 or Xwayland. Native Wayland embedding
is not supported yet. Linux package launchers request X11 with
--ozone-platform=x11, so Wayland desktops still need Xwayland available.
The Linux backend starts a system mpv executable with --wid, so mpv must
be installed and available on PATH. CI validates the Linux native addon and
standard packages on Ubuntu 22.04, with Flatpak packaging built on Ubuntu 24.04.
Expected user targets are Ubuntu/Debian .deb, Arch/Manjaro pacman, RPM
distributions, and AppImage on x64 systems with X11/Xwayland plus mpv
installed. Flatpak and Snap builds remain available, but embedded MPV is not
announced as supported there yet because those sandboxed formats do not expose
the host mpv executable to the embedded backend by default.
Troubleshooting
macOS: "App is damaged and can't be opened"
Older unsigned macOS builds may require removing the quarantine flag from the downloaded application:
xattr -c /Applications/IPTVnator.app
Alternatively, if the app is located in a different directory:
xattr -c ~/Downloads/IPTVnator.app
Linux: chrome-sandbox Issues
If you encounter the following error when launching IPTVnator:
The SUID sandbox helper binary was found, but is not configured correctly.
Rather than run without sandboxing I'm aborting now.
You need to make sure that chrome-sandbox is owned by root and has mode 4755.
Solution 1: Fix chrome-sandbox permissions (Recommended for .deb/.rpm installations)
Navigate to the IPTVnator installation directory and run:
Save the file and relaunch the application from your application menu.
Alternatively, you can launch IPTVnator from the terminal with the flag:
iptvnator --no-sandbox
GNU/Linux: Wayland startup failure
If IPTVnator exits on GNU/Linux with errors about failing to connect to
Wayland or initialize the Ozone platform, force X11/XWayland instead:
iptvnator --ozone-platform=x11
This workaround is mainly for older or problematic Linux graphics stacks. The
Snap package already includes this X11 override by default. For AppImage,
direct binaries, and other Linux package formats, pass the flag manually when
needed.
How to Build and Develop
Requirements:
Node.js with pnpm (via Corepack)
Clone this repository and install project dependencies:
$ corepack enable
$ pnpm install
Start the application:
$ pnpm run serve:backend
This will open the Electron app in a separate window, while the Angular dev server will run at http://localhost:4200.
The equivalent Nx command is:
$ nx serve electron-backend
To start Electron with an empty, isolated data directory instead of your normal
~/.iptvnator folder, set IPTVNATOR_E2E_DATA_DIR for that run:
This redirects the SQLite database, Electron user data, and local config under
the given directory. Delete that directory whenever you want a fresh empty
state.
If you need to debug renderer freezes or GPU/compositor issues in Electron, you
can disable hardware acceleration for a run:
$ IPTVNATOR_DISABLE_HARDWARE_ACCELERATION=1 pnpm run serve:backend
If you need startup diagnostics for a white screen or a frozen route, you can
also turn on opt-in Electron tracing. These logs are written to the Electron
terminal output so they still help when the renderer DevTools never open:
$ IPTVNATOR_TRACE_STARTUP=1 pnpm run serve:backend
IPTVNATOR_TRACE_IPC=1 logs renderer window.electron.* calls reaching the
Electron bridge
IPTVNATOR_TRACE_DB=1 logs DB worker requests and request-scoped DB events
IPTVNATOR_TRACE_SQL=1 logs SQLite statements in both the main connection and
DB worker connection
IPTVNATOR_TRACE_WINDOW=1 logs BrowserWindow load, navigation, and
unresponsive events
IPTVNATOR_TRACE_RENDERER_CONSOLE=1 mirrors renderer console messages into
the Electron terminal output
Security-sensitive network compatibility flags are opt-in:
IPTVNATOR_ALLOW_PRIVATE_NETWORK_URLS=1 permits strict EPG fetches from
playlist metadata (url-tvg) to resolve to localhost, LAN, or other private
addresses. Directly configured Xtream/Stalker portals and private playlist
servers remain supported without this flag. Prefer the in-app source-scoped
“Allow source” action for a trusted EPG URL.
IPTVNATOR_ALLOW_INSECURE_TLS=1 disables certificate validation for remote
playlist imports and refreshes for the whole Electron process. Prefer the
in-app host-scoped trust action for a trusted provider with a self-signed or
otherwise invalid certificate.
If the local Nx daemon gets into a bad state before rerunning Electron, reset it:
$ pnpm nx reset
To run only the Angular app without Electron, use:
$ pnpm run serve:frontend
Disclaimer
IPTVnator doesn't provide any playlists or other digital content.
Trademark
The name "IPTVnator" and the IPTVnator logo are unregistered trademarks of the project owner. The MIT license covers the source code only — it does not grant rights to the name or logo. Forks and redistributions (including app-store submissions) must use a different name and their own icon. See TRADEMARK.md for details.
