Here’s how I created a custom newsletter for my Jellyfin media server

Have you ever wished you could easily notify everyone who uses your Jellyfin server about the shows and movies you just added? I did so and discovered that it was quite simple to set up an automated newsletter using a third-party Jellyfin plugin.

Jellyfin is a self-hosted media server similar to Plex, but it’s completely free and open source. While Plex server managers have Tautilli to send newsletters, Jellyfin users have to look elsewhere for automated newsletters. Luckily, I found a plugin that does just that.

Some things you will need

To be able to send newsletters that effectively show people what’s on your server, you need to be ready with a few things.

• Well-organized media: Be sure to follow Jellyfin’s official folder organization tips, as the plugin should be able to easily identify which media to put in your newsletter. Otherwise, your newsletters could omit media or display wrong information.
• A Jellyfin server accessible externally: The plugin should be able to remotely pull poster images from your server via its URL and port number, if applicable.

  • If your Jellyfin server is private on your local network, you can instead provide an Imgur API key, which will allow the newsletter to pull posters from Imgur instead of your server.

• An SMTP compatible email account and password: The plugin relies on SMTP to distribute newsletters. Your email provider probably allows this, but you need to consult your provider’s documentation to find the SMTP server address, port number, and password.

With all that in hand, let’s get started.

First, add this repository to your server

Jellyfin Newsletter Plugin is a third-party plugin, which means it is not developed or officially endorsed by the Jellyfin team. You can still install it if you add the repository. You can do this by logging into your admin dashboard and navigating to the Plugins tab on the left menu.

Click “Manage Repositories” in the upper right corner of the interface.

Then click on “New repository”.

Here you need to enter a repository name and URL. The name can be anything you want, but I named my newsletters for simplicity. The URL you need to enter is:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Cloud9Developer/Jellyfin-Newsletter-Plugin/master/manifest.json

Click the “Add” button and you will see your new repository listed.

Install the Newsletters plugin

Returning to your Plugin Manager, you should see the plugin listed in your Available Plugins. Click on it.

Below the newsletter image, click the big blue “Install” button.

You will receive a warning about installing third-party plugins. Since we trust this developer, click “Install”. Then wait for the install button to turn into an uninstall button.

Restart Jellyfin

Now that the installation is complete, you must restart your Jellyfin server before the Newsletter plugin will be usable. Return to the Jellyfin dashboard and, after making sure you are not interrupting anyone’s media stream, click the “Restart” button under your server information.

It will ask you to confirm that you want to restart, then you will have to wait a minute until the server is back online.

Configure your newsletter

Once your server has restarted, it’s time to configure your newsletter settings. Return to the Newsletters plugin management page and find the Settings button.

At the top of the settings page, you can manage the basics of your newsletter:

• “To” address: The email addresses of all recipients to whom you wish to receive your newsletter. Don’t forget to ask these people if they want one before you start spamming them! If you have several, separate them with commas.
• “From” address: This can be anything you want and will be visible to all your recipients. Make this your home address if you want readers to know how to email you back.
• Subject: The subject line you want to appear on your email. This is your chance to get creative and grab your readers’ attention! You can even put emoji here.

You also have the option to turn off the inclusion of movies or TV shows.

Next, you can expand the “Newsletter HTML Format” box if you want to change the appearance of your newsletter. You should only do this if you know what you want and know how to edit HTML. Otherwise, the plugin uses a default appearance that matches Jellyfin’s default color scheme.

Next, open the “Scraper Config” box and either enter your Imgur API key, or, as I did, change the drop-down menu to Local JF Hosting and place your server address with, if necessary, its access port number. This tells the plugin where to retrieve poster images for movies and TV shows in your newsletter.

Finally, configure the SMTP configuration. The easiest solution is to use a Gmail address, as the plugin provides you with the server address and port number. You will need to enter your Google account ID and its “app password”. As I explained earlier, this is a special password that you need to request from Google, not the password of your account with which you usually log in.

To see if sending the newsletter will work, click “Test” and wait a few minutes for a test email to arrive in your recipients’ inbox. If this appears, you are good to go.

If no email appears, you need to recheck your configuration. The first time I tried, it turned out that I had entered my Gmail ID incorrectly. Otherwise, check your server log files for error messages.

Start sending newsletters

Once your newsletter is configured, all you have to do is wait for the first newsletter to come out. By default, it runs on a scheduled task that occurs every 7 days.

If you want to force the first newsletter to be delivered immediately, you can go to your server’s Scheduled Tasks menu and scroll down until you see the newsletter tasks.

First, run the “Filesystem Scraper” task to make sure the newsletter contains your media information and images. Then run the “Email Newsletter” task to send it.

In a few minutes, a newsletter email will appear in your inbox. By clicking on the newsletter images, you will access your Jellyfin instance. In the future, the newsletter will show everything you have added since the last newsletter was published.

There are many other ways to take your home media server to the next level. For example, you can personalize your Jellyfin theme. I also recently learned how to add a “skip intro” button to shows in Jellyfin.