Note: This is a divergent fork of damontecres/Wholphin with additional features and modifications. See the New Features section below for what's been added.

Wholphin is an open-source Android TV client for Jellyfin. It aims to provide a different app UI that's inspired by Plex for users interested in migrating to Jellyfin.

This is not a fork of the official client. Wholphin's user interface and controls have been written completely from scratch. Wholphin v0.3.0+ supports playing media using either ExoPlayer/Media3 or MPV (experimental).

• A navigation drawer for quick access to libraries, favorites, search, and settings from almost anywhere in the app
• Integration with Seerr to discover new movies and TV shows
• Integration with Jellyfin Home Screen Sections plugin for custom home screen rows
• Option to combine Continue Watching & Next Up rows
• Show Movie/TV Show titles when browsing libraries
• Play theme music, if available
• Customize subtitle style for plain text subtitles
• Search & download subtitles (requires compatible server plugin such as OpenSubtitles)
• Customize layout grids for libraries
• Multiple app color themes
• Protect user profile switches with PIN code
• Redesigned user selection screen with horizontal scrollable user icons (streaming service style)

• Different media playback engines:
  • ExoPlayer w/ optional extra audio & AV1 software decoding
  • MPV for direct playing anything plus ASS subtitle support
• Plex inspired playback controls:
  • Using D-Pad left/right for seeking during playback
  • Quickly access video chapters & queue during playback
  • Optionally skip back a few seconds when resuming playback
• Live TV & DVR support
• Auto play next episodes with pass out protection
• Option for automatic refresh rate & resolution switching on supported displays
• Trickplay support
• Subtly show playback position along the bottom of the screen while seeking w/ D-Pad

This fork includes the following enhancements over the original damontecres/Wholphin repository:

• Rich Media Notifications: Enhanced MediaSession notifications that display detailed information about what's playing, including:

  • Title (movie/show name or series name for episodes)
  • Subtitle/Artist (episode information like "S01E01 - Episode Name" or production year for movies)
  • Artwork (primary image or backdrop)

  These notifications appear on the device where playback is happening and provide richer information than the default "Wholphin is playing" notification. Works with both ExoPlayer and MPV backends.

• Enhanced Search Relevance: Improved search functionality with intelligent relevance scoring that prioritizes results based on:

  • Exact matches
  • Prefix matches
  • Word boundary matches
  • Fuzzy matching using Levenshtein distance
  • Type-based bonuses (prioritizing series and movies over episodes)
  • Support for regex patterns in search queries

• Seerr Integration Enhancements: Extended Seerr integration with additional features and improvements for discovering and managing media requests.

• Custom Home Screen Rows: Integration with the Jellyfin Home Screen Sections plugin, allowing server-side customization of the home screen layout and content organization.

1. Enable side-loading "unknown" apps
   • https://androidtvnews.com/unknown-sources-chromecast-google-tv/
   • https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-sideload-apps-android-tv/
   • https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-tools/alternative-distribution#unknown-sources
   • https://www.aftvnews.com/how-to-enable-apps-from-unknown-sources-on-an-amazon-fire-tv-or-fire-tv-stick/
2. Install the APK on your Android TV device with one of these options:
   • Download the latest APK release from the releases page
   • Put the APK on an SD Card/USB stick/network share and use a file manager app (e.g. FX File Explorer). Android's preinstalled file manager probably will not work!
   • Use Send files to TV from the Google Play Store on your phone & TV
   • (Expert) Use ADB to install the APK from your computer (guide)

After the initial install above, the app will automatically check for updates. The updates can be installed in settings.

The first time you attempt an update, the OS should guide you through enabling the required additional permissions for the app to install updates.

Requires Android 6+ (or Fire TV OS 6+) and Jellyfin server 10.10.x or 10.11.x (tested on primarily 10.11).

The app is tested on a variety of Android TV/Fire TV OS devices, but if you encounter issues, please file an issue!

• Thanks to damontecres for creating and maintaining the original Wholphin project
• Thanks to the Jellyfin team for creating and maintaining such a great open-source media server
• Thanks to the official Jellyfin Android TV client developers, some code for creating the device direct play profile is adapted from there
• Thanks to the Jellyfin Kotlin SDK developers for making it easier to interact with the Jellyfin server API
• Thanks to numerous other libraries that make app development even possible