SyncPlay

SyncPlay — Watch Together

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SyncPlay lets several people watch the same series or movie perfectly in sync — phone, tablet and PC. Everyone connects to the same instance of the app; there is no third-party server involved. Invited guests can join via a link without an account.

Enabling SyncPlay

Open the Integrations page (/integrations) → SyncPlay tab → turn on Enable SyncPlay. The page reloads and a SyncPlay entry appears in the sidebar on the left. That's all — there is no server address to configure, because this instance is the server.

Rooms

Open SyncPlay from the sidebar (/syncplay).

• Create or join: enter a room name and your display name (the name is required for guests), then Enter room.
• Active rooms: the lobby lists all open rooms with what's currently playing and how many people are active. Join any of them with one click. Logged-in owners can also close a room from here.
• Rooms persist — they stay open even when empty and survive an app restart, so you can always rejoin. They are only removed when someone closes them.

The host is whoever starts/enters the room first. If the host leaves, host automatically passes to the longest-present remaining member.

Inviting friends

Click Invite to get a shareable link (copied straight to your clipboard) and a QR code. Friends open the link, type a name and join — no account required. Guests only ever see the SyncPlay view, nothing else of your app.

Choosing what to watch

The host clicks Choose what to watch and picks from your Library — with Series / Movies tabs and a search box. Selecting a title starts it for everyone. Whenever the host changes the title, everyone follows automatically.

The player is embedded directly in the page (not a fullscreen pop-up), so the chat and viewer list stay usable while watching.

While watching

• Play / pause / seek are synchronised to everyone. The server is authoritative, so anyone joining mid-stream is dropped in at the exact current position.
• Chat with a "typing…" indicator.
• Emoji reactions float up over the video.
• Presence: see who is watching, paused, buffering or away (their tab is in the background), with avatars and a device icon.
• Auto-pause on buffer: if someone stalls, playback pauses for everyone until all are ready again.
• Auto-next episode: when an episode ends, a synced countdown (Netflix-style) starts the next one for the whole room.
• Reload-safe: refreshing the page automatically drops you back into your room.

Host controls (⚙)

The host opens Host settings (gear icon) for:

Control	Effect
Only I control playback	Host-lock: the timeline and play button are disabled for everyone else — they can no longer skip or pause.
Max participants	Limit how many people can be in the room.
Room password	Protect the room; guests must enter the password to join.
Kick	Remove a viewer immediately.
Ban (by IP / name)	Remove a viewer and stop them rejoining.
Transfer host	Hand host to someone else.
Close room	End the room for everyone.

Kick / ban / transfer are also available per viewer in the Watching list.

Performance: one transcode for the whole room

Because everyone in a room watches the same file at the same position, SyncPlay shares one transcode session (one ffmpeg process) and the same video segments across all viewers — instead of one transcode per person. Four people watching together = one ffmpeg, not four.

Good to know

• All participants connect to the same instance, so guests need network access to it (same network, or a reachable address / tunnel).
• There is one shared quality for the room (no per-viewer adaptive bitrate).
• Streaming uses the same HLS transcoder as the Library player.