Blank Box Community Beta

Blank Box Community Beta

We are opening Blank Box Community for everyone! We built it to bring physical collections, files on your own drives, optional Plex/Jellyfin catalogs and saved household records into one private library. The catalog runs on your device and works offline. Thank you for testing and telling us where the experience is unclear or unreliable.

Choose your download

System	Download	Start with
Linux with systemd	blankbox-community-0.1.0-beta.8.zip	START-HERE.md, then guides/LINUX.md
Docker on Linux	The same Linux/Docker ZIP	guides/DOCKER.md
Windows 10/11 x64	blankbox-community-0.1.0-beta.8-windows-x64.zip	guides/WINDOWS.md
Source build	blankbox-source-0.1.0-beta.8.zip	README.md

We have bundled a current signed copy each of our offline metadata packs - Movies v4, Books v7, Music v5 and TV Shows v4. We do not include a sample household library or original media files. Windows includes an isolated Python runtime; Linux/Docker uses its own platform tools. Windows is experimental while we complete a real Windows/NTFS install, update and restore trial. Check PLATFORMS.md for the evidence boundary.

Protect your library

Indexing and linking leave your originals on their drives. A library recovery point covers saved records, managed copies and paired installed metapacks. It does not recreate linked source-drive movies, music, books or whole drives. Copying eligible photos, home videos and personal files to a separate backup drive is a different, manually confirmed Import action. Read RECOVERY.md before relying on a new library or installing an update.

After restoring on another computer, reconnect Plex/Jellyfin with a reachable address and key. We exclude provider credentials from portable recovery. In Settings → System & About, Restore saved provider covers can fill missing covers from saved provider references after reconnection while retaining uploaded artwork.

Verify and update

We publish SHA256SUMS, its detached signature, and SIGNING-KEY.json alongside these ZIPs and the four standalone .bbpack files. Check the signing-key fingerprint through our separately controlled Blank Box announcement before trusting a first download: b2235cbf8af3f06fb4cc2f92f1dbc908739e8f351530538a01fef515b09fcb9d. Use the trusted package verifier described in UPDATES.md before running an installer. Core and metapacks update separately and optionally; neither needs an online update service.

To check the complete SHA256SUMS file after downloading every asset, put the nine downloaded metapack files and companion documents in a local metapacks/ folder beside the three ZIPs and SIGNING-KEY.json. GitHub presents release assets as individual files; the signed checksum list preserves their metapacks/ paths. You can also check the digest of an individual ZIP without downloading all packs.

Our original code is source available for personal, noncommercial installation and modification under LICENSE. Included third-party components retain their own licenses; see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and each package's exact inventory. We connect to separately installed Jellyfin or Plex servers but do not bundle them or their media.

This beta keeps catalog schema 20 and metapack reader 5. See RELEASE-NOTES.md for the beta.8 guide and notice changes and the beta.7 library improvements. We welcome reports with the exact beta version, operating system, device, action taken, expected result and actual result. Please keep recovery keys, provider tokens, private paths, household titles and raw catalogs out of public issues.