AniWatcher

A self-hosted anime downloader for your home server. AniWatcher watches nyaa.si for new episodes of the shows on your watchlist, sends them to Deluge, and then renames and sorts the finished files into a Jellyfin/Plex-friendly library.

Features

• Watchlist: search MyAnimeList, add a show and season, and AniWatcher tracks new episodes automatically.
• Automatic polling: checks the nyaa.si RSS feed on a schedule (default every 15 min) and picks the best-seeded release that matches your preferred resolution and release groups.
• Deluge integration: pushes torrents to a Deluge daemon over RPC.
• Auto rename & organize: moves finished video files into Show/Season N/Show - SxxEyy.ext.
• Metadata cleaning: removes the release-group title tags that MKV files carry, which Jellyfin would otherwise show as the episode name (uses mkvpropedit).
• Manual tools: full-season grabs, picking a release by hand, a disk rescan, a library browser, an MKV metadata inspector, and a view of the completed folder.
• Web UI: a single-page dashboard with live logs, download history, notifications, and settings you can change at runtime.

How it works

1. Add an anime and season in the web UI.

2. Every POLL_INTERVAL seconds, AniWatcher queries nyaa.si and chooses the best matching release.

3. The torrent goes to Deluge.

4. Every WATCH_INTERVAL seconds, a folder watcher scans the Deluge completed folder.

5. New video files are renamed and moved, for example:

   [SubsPlease] Frieren - 28 (1080p).mkv → Frieren - S01E28.mkv

<ANIME_BASE>/
  Frieren Beyond Journey's End/
    Season 1/
      Frieren Beyond Journey's End - S01E01.mkv
      Frieren Beyond Journey's End - S01E02.mkv
  Solo Leveling/
    Season 2/
      Solo Leveling - S02E01.mkv

Requirements

• Docker + Docker Compose (recommended), or Python 3.12+ with mkvtoolnix installed
• A running Deluge daemon with remote connections enabled
• A MyAnimeList API client ID (free)
• Deluge and AniWatcher must both be able to reach the completed-downloads folder and the anime library folder

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/<your-user>/aniwatcher.git
cd aniwatcher

2. Enable remote access on the Deluge daemon

In Deluge go to Preferences → Daemon:

• Turn on Allow Remote Connections
• Note the daemon port (default 58846)

Add a user for AniWatcher to Deluge's auth file (in the Deluge config directory). Each line has the form username:password:level; 10 is the admin level:

aniwatcher:choose_a_strong_password:10

Restart Deluge after you edit the file.

3. Get a MyAnimeList client ID

1. Sign in at https://myanimelist.net/apiconfig and click Create ID.
2. Set the app type to web and fill in the required fields (any placeholder URL works).
3. Copy the Client ID.

4. Configure your environment

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env and fill in your own values (see Configuration). .env is listed in .gitignore, so your credentials never get committed.

5. Deploy with Docker Compose

docker compose up -d --build

Then open http://<your-server>:5000.

docker-compose.yml bind-mounts ANIME_BASE and TORRENT_DONE from the host at the same path inside the container, so the paths Deluge reports match the paths AniWatcher sees. The container runs as UID/GID 568. Make sure that user can read and write both folders, or change user: in the compose file and the IDs in the Dockerfile.

Alternative: run without Docker

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate        # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
# install mkvtoolnix with your package manager, e.g. apt install mkvtoolnix
set -a; source .env; set +a      # load the variables into the shell
python app.py

Note: app state is stored in /data/watchlist.json, so the /data directory must exist and be writable (or change DATA_FILE in config.py).

Configuration

These values come from environment variables (.env). Most of them can also be changed later on the Settings tab. Values saved there are kept in /data/watchlist.json and take priority over the environment.

Variable	Default	Description
DELUGE_HOST	localhost	Deluge daemon host/IP
DELUGE_PORT	58846	Deluge daemon RPC port
DELUGE_USER	localclient	Deluge auth user
DELUGE_PASS	(empty)	Deluge auth password
MAL_CLIENT_ID	(empty)	MyAnimeList API client ID
ANIME_BASE	/media/anime	Root folder of the anime library
TORRENT_DONE	/downloads/completed	Deluge's completed-downloads folder
POLL_INTERVAL	900	Seconds between nyaa.si polls
WATCH_INTERVAL	60	Seconds between completed-folder scans
WEB_PORT	5000	Host port for the web UI (Docker Compose only)

Project structure

app.py              Flask app factory + background threads
config.py           Environment-based configuration
data.py             JSON persistence + settings merge
routes/             HTTP + WebSocket endpoints (watchlist, downloads, settings, system…)
services/           Deluge, MAL, nyaa, poller, renamer, MKV metadata cleaner
utils/              Filename/episode parsing helpers
templates/, static/ Web UI

Security notes

• The web UI has no authentication. Run it only on a trusted LAN or behind a reverse proxy that requires a login.
• Never commit .env. Use .env.example as the template.