Tubeling
Tubeling is a bundle: YouTarr plus your choice of Plex, Jellyfin or Emby, picked when you subscribe. YouTarr follows the YouTube channels and playlists you choose, saves new videos to your own cloud storage with titles, descriptions, upload dates and channel art, and your media server presents them as an ordinary library you can watch on a TV, phone, tablet or browser.
It suits a household that watches a handful of channels regularly: what's in the library is what you put there, in upload order, with no recommendations sidebar, and a copy stays on your storage even if a video later disappears from YouTube.
When does Tubeling on ElfHosted make sense?
- Two apps, one subscription. The downloader and the media server come together, on the same storage, in your own stack.
- No server at home. Downloads happen on a schedule around the clock, and your media server is reachable from anywhere.
- Plex is pre-pointed. YouTarr is already set to your ElfHosted Plex's address inside the stack; with Jellyfin or Emby you add the library yourself (steps below).
- Behind your ElfHosted login, and updated for you.
Bring your own storage
Tubeling doesn't include media storage. Videos go to cloud storage you mount with rclone (Google Drive, OneDrive, S3, Backblaze B2 and more), and you need to tell YouTarr where (step 2 below). Until you do, YouTarr writes to temporary space that's emptied whenever it restarts.
Get a 7-day trial of ElfHosted Tubeling! 
How do I access Tubeling?
Tubeling is available:
Signed-in users see their own URLs
The addresses above show the general pattern. Sign in and these become your personal, clickable links.
Info
Tubeling is an open-source tool. ElfHosted provides hosting infrastructure only. Users are responsible for their use of this service in compliance with applicable laws and third-party terms of service.
How do I use it?
1. Mount your storage
Follow the rclone guide to mount your cloud storage. It appears inside your apps under /storage/rclone/<something>; use FileBrowser to confirm the exact path, and create a folder for YouTube videos.
2. Tell YouTarr where to save
Set DATA_PATH to that folder with ElfBot; YouTarr restarts and saves there from then on:
Quick-paste into YouTarr's environment variables using ElfBotDATA_PATH=/storage/rclone/<your-remote>/youtube
3. Add your channels
Open YouTarr from your dashboard (the Tubeling address is YouTarr's). Add a channel or playlist URL, choose the quality, and YouTarr downloads new uploads on its schedule. YouTube sometimes demands a signed-in session; if downloads fail, see setting up cookies on the YouTarr page.
Point your media server at the same folder you set as DATA_PATH:
- Plex: add an Other Videos library using the Personal Media agent, with Local Media Assets enabled and moved to the top. Then connect Plex in YouTarr's settings (it's already pointed at
http://plex:32400; sign in to Plex there) so YouTarr can refresh the library after each download. - Jellyfin or Emby: add a Movies library, and in its metadata settings put NFO first. YouTarr writes each video as a standalone item with its own NFO file.
YouTarr's own guides for Plex, Jellyfin and Emby cover the details, including playlists and kids' and music sub-libraries.
How much storage?
It depends entirely on what you follow and at what quality. A 30-minute 1080p video is roughly 1GB; a daily channel adds up quickly. Start with a few channels and keep an eye on your storage.
Tubeling also works with
How do I get support for Tubeling?
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For general use of Tubeling, refer to the official site or to one of the links in the resources section below.
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For specific support re your ElfHosted configuration / account, see the ElfHosted support options!
You can contribute directly to the development of Tubeling using the following:
Tubeling resources
Your content, your responsibility
ElfHosted provides Tubeling as a hosted application — we do not supply content, accounts, or third-party credentials. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of this app complies with applicable laws and our Acceptable Use Policy. If you have questions about what is or isn't permitted, please reach out — we're happy to help.
What users say..
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I am new here, but today I learned realized that Elfhosted is one of the best free and open source software communities I've seen, and FOSS communities have been at the center of my life since the 90s (Perl, PHP, Symfony, Drupal, Ethereum, etc.). Great open software built by great people who care = great community, and that is something special.
You've done an amazing job @Funky Penguelf with the platform you provide and this place has an awesome mix of active community caretakers and software creators that I've seen here so far like BSM, Spoked, LayeZee and other elf vengers. Keep up the energy, productivity and community and take time to enjoy it and appreciate each other!
@skwah (Discord)
As a happy Elfhosted customer—who also self hosts MANY things across about 10 severs (dedicated, VPSes, and VMs running on Synology), I wouldn’t switch to self hosting the services I get from Elfhosted. They just work with very little effort configuring things, and the support the owner and his team provides is second to none. Plus I love being part of a fledgling—but quickly growing—enterprise.
/u/jatguy. (Reddit)
I’ve been using this service for a while now, and honestly, it’s a game-changer compared to anything else I’ve tried for managing my media library. The support is fantastic—super quick, and if the staff aren’t around (which rarely happens), the community steps up right away. I can’t imagine going back to any other platform.
Before this, I had my own setup with a NUC, NAS, and tools like Sonarr and Radarr. It worked pretty well for a while, and my internet speed was high enough to stream without any buffering. But in the end, it wasn’t worth the time or headache of managing all the storage and keeping everything running smoothly.
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Best possible options for anyone looking for the do-it-all option along with the best customer service ive experienced in this space so far. Id rate it a 6 if I could but its limited to 5/5...
@hashmelters (Discord)
(responding to a discussion re the cost of ElfHosted vs mainstream streaming / self-hosting):
I didn't know that the goal of this project was to compete with large companies running/renting entire DCs. I was under the impression that the goal of this project was to manage the updating of almost selfhosted applications on a shared platform with other users. Basically, be my sysadmin for me.
That being said, paying for services is the 'easy button'. There is a real world cost incurred for the time saved. Time is money. Time is the most valuable currency that exists. Once time is spent, it's forever lost, one cannot retrieve it again (yet). In my mind, there are 3 options for use of time with respect to: mainstream, selfhosting, elfhosted.
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mainstream - my time is valuable and I don't want curated content and I don't care what content that I have the ability to consume. I only like what's popular.
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elfhosted - my time is valuable, I want my own curated content without being forced to browse past the same damn entry 500 times just to find out that I can't watch the movie I want because it's not available in my current location or was removed last week from mainstream providers.
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selfhost - I care about costs and I have nothing but time to waste or I want to learn about the backend of the systems involved. I'll pay for my own VPS/homelab, electricity, manage the OS, manage app updates, figure out how to make the apps talk nice to each other, create my own beautiful frontend.
I know how much my time is worth, does that reddit poster know how much their time is worth? Without knowing what you are worth, you can't make effective capital expenditures with respect to the time it will take to recoup the capital.
I know I don't need elfhosted at all for my use case. I choose to stay with elfhosted because it's my 'easy button'. It's an efficient capital expense for the amount of time it saves me managing my own hardware, apps and saves me electricity costs. I'm also in a situation where I don't have upload bandwidth from my home to serve HD content to myself remotely. If I lived back in a city, I would still be here. My time is worth $$/hr.
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Zestyclose_Teacher20 (Reddit)
"thanks for the help and must say this is the best host I every had for my server 🙂 10/10 🙂 All other places I have try have I got a lot buff etc. Your host can even give me full power on a 4K Remux on 200GB big movie file . That's damn awesome 😄"
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"What an amazing support system these guys have Chris and Layzee i think it was! Both are very patient with me even though I am a newbie at all this. Very thorough and explained everything step by step with me
I couldn’t ask for anything better than the service I have received by these guys! Happy happy client❤️"
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