Migrate Real-Debrid to Usenet (via NzbDAV)
Legal Responsibility
This guide covers the technical mechanics of migrating between cloud storage services. Users are solely responsible for ensuring all content accessed, stored, or streamed through this setup is legally obtained and complies with applicable copyright laws and the terms of service of Real-Debrid, your Usenet provider, and other third-party services. ElfHosted provides hosting infrastructure only and does not provide, curate, or facilitate access to copyrighted content. See our Acceptable Use Policy for details.
This is the soft-migrate path from a Real-Debrid + Decypharr (or Zurg) setup to Usenet + NzbDAV on ElfHosted. The downloader swap is straightforward; the interesting part is the cleanup of the leftover Real-Debrid library and letting the arrs re-grab from NewsNab indexers.
If you haven't read the migration overview yet, start there for the why: the May 2026 infringing_file filter, the WEB-DL / WEBRip / scene-tag breakage, the single-IP-ban risk, and the soft-migrate principle. This page is the how.
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Why Usenet (and why NzbDAV)
Usenet sits structurally outside everything Real-Debrid is struggling with in 2026:
- No filename-based cache filter. Usenet providers don't run the FNEF-driven
infringing_filefilter that broke WEB-DL / WEBRip / scene-tagged releases across Real-Debrid in May 2026. - No single-IP rule. Usenet bills per byte / per month from your provider, not per concurrent stream from an account. Your household, your VPN, your arr stack, and your phone over cellular can all hit it at once.
- ~5 year retention on most major providers, so the long-tail catalogue is dramatically larger than any debrid cache.
- No account-purge waves. Provider-side takedowns happen but are individual and rare, not cache-wide.
Usenet on ElfHosted runs through NzbDAV, a SABnzbd-API-compatible downloader that surfaces Usenet content as a virtual filesystem with no upfront download. When the arrs grab a release, NzbDAV creates a virtual file at /storage/nzbdav/... and a symlink in your library; when the media server reads the file at playback, NzbDAV pulls the articles from your Usenet provider on demand. There's no caching layer to manage and no cache-retention timer to keep alive.
Unlike the TorBox path, there's no equivalent of importing a Real-Debrid hashlist: Usenet has no global cache to check your old hashes against. The Real-Debrid library's value as a hashlist is, for this migration, mostly historical; what you really want is for the arrs to discover and grab fresh NewsNab releases for everything that used to live in RD.
What you need before starting
- An existing ElfHosted personal media stack with Plex / Jellyfin / Emby + Radarr / Sonarr + Decypharr (or Zurg) on Real-Debrid
- A Usenet provider account, or use ElfHosted's bundled
news.elfhosted.comprovider (included with NzbDAV bundles, credentials on the NNTP page of your store account) - NzbDAV added to your stack (on Usenet-bundled stacks this is automatic; otherwise switch tier or add via ElfBot)
- (Optional) A NewsNab indexer subscription such as Drunken Slug, NZBGeek, or NZBPlanet. The bundled ElfZyclops shared cache works on its own; third-party indexers improve hit rate.
Step 1: Configure NzbDAV's Usenet provider
- Open NzbDAV from your apps dashboard.
- Add your Usenet provider's NNTP credentials (or use the bundled
news.elfhosted.comprovider if you're on a Usenet-bundled tier). - Confirm NzbDAV reports a healthy connection to the provider.
The NzbDAV app page covers provider setup, the SABnzbd-compatible API surface, and the realtime / repair scanning options in detail.
Step 2: Wire up indexers in Prowlarr
- Open Prowlarr from your apps dashboard.
- The bundled ElfZyclops shared cache (
http://elfhosted-internal.zyclops) is enabled by default. It surfaces a community cache of recent NewsNab results across all ElfHosted tenants and is the cheapest fast-coverage option. - Add any third-party NewsNab indexers you subscribe to (Drunken Slug, NZBGeek, NZBPlanet, etc.).
- Sync indexers to Radarr / Sonarr (Prowlarr → Apps → trigger sync).
ElfZyclops alone gets you a long way; third-party indexers improve the long-tail hit rate.
Step 3: Add NzbDAV as the SABnzbd download client
In Radarr / Sonarr (and Lidarr / Readarr if you use them), add NzbDAV as a SABnzbd-compatible download client. On Usenet-bundled stacks this is pre-configured.
For an existing stack, see the NzbDAV app page for the exact category mapping. The important detail: the categories in NzbDAV must match the arr names (radarr, sonarr, radarr4k, sonarr4k, sonarranime) so the symlink tree resolves correctly.
Leave Decypharr in place for now. Both download clients can coexist; with NzbDAV listed above Decypharr in each arr's priorities, new grabs prefer Usenet and fall back to RD only if no Usenet release is available.
Step 4: Purge dead Real-Debrid content with LitterBox
Real-Debrid's May 2026 infringing-file filter and account purge waves left most long-lived RD libraries with a noticeable percentage of items that report downloaded in the API but won't actually play. These need to be deleted from RD itself before you clean up the symlinks, otherwise the next symlink scan won't see them as dangling.
LitterBox signs into Real-Debrid via OAuth (token stays in your browser; the LitterBox proxy is stateless and never logs or stores anything), counts the broken / filter-flagged / error-state torrents, and offers a one-click bulk-delete with a type-to-confirm guard.
- Open https://litterbox.elfhosted.com in a browser.
- Sign in with Real-Debrid (OAuth flow, no API-key entry).
- Run the fast pass (baked-in regex against known filter-correlated release patterns; instant).
- Optionally run the deep probe (per-torrent ground-truth check; rate-limited to 250 req/min by RD's ceiling).
- Review counts, type-to-confirm, bulk-delete.
The deletions take effect on RD immediately. The corresponding symlinks in your library are now broken.
Step 5: Delete broken symlinks with ElfBot
ElfBot's broken-symlink tooling cleans up the dangling symlinks LitterBox just created.
- Open ElfBot from your apps dashboard (or directly at
https://<username>-elfbot.elfhosted.com). - Run Broken Symlink Report. ElfBot reports every dangling symlink in the library.
- Run Delete Broken Symlinks and confirm.
The arrs will see those items as missing on the next refresh.
Step 6: Re-search the arrs to backfill from Usenet
With broken symlinks gone, Radarr / Sonarr know the items are missing and will search for replacements. With NzbDAV wired up as the download client and your NewsNab indexers feeding Prowlarr, those re-searches return Usenet releases.
Two ways to drive this:
- Manual: in each Arr, filter to "missing" items and trigger Search Missing.
- Automated: Cleanuparr handles this on a schedule. Recommended for large libraries.
NzbDAV grabs are virtual (no upfront article download), so the arrs see the import complete almost immediately and the actual byte stream from Usenet only happens when you press play.
Step 7: Run hybrid for a few days
At this point you have:
- NzbDAV handling new grabs to Usenet
- Decypharr still serving RD grabs (and the un-purged subset of your RD library still resolving via the existing symlinks)
- Cleanuparr (if installed) chewing through the missing-content backlog and refilling the library from Usenet
Live with this for a few days. Watch items from both origins. Verify:
- Usenet playback works (the on-demand article fetch should be transparent).
- New grabs land quickly.
- Plex / Jellyfin / Emby metadata looks right on NzbDAV-backed items.
Nothing so far is destructive: you can pause, investigate, or roll back at any point.
Step 8: Cut over
When you're satisfied the new path works, switch your subscription:
- In the ElfHosted store, switch your personal media stack from your current Real-Debrid-bundled tier to a Usenet-bundled tier (subscription-switching flow).
- Provisioning swaps the underlying stack: Decypharr and Real-Debrid mounts come down, NzbDAV is the sole downloader.
- Any symlinks still pointing into the Real-Debrid mount break.
Run ElfBot → Broken Symlink Report → Delete Broken Symlinks one more time to clear those out. Cleanuparr (or a manual re-search) backfills what's missing from Usenet. Coverage usually reaches its long-term level within a day or two.
Recommended: combine with TorBox via CatBox for the strongest setup
Usenet-only and TorBox-only stacks both have edges where coverage thins out. Combined, they cover each other almost perfectly: TorBox handles items Usenet doesn't have a recent post for, Usenet handles items TorBox hasn't cached, and most popular content is on both.
If you've migrated to Usenet first, see the TorBox migration guide for the bolt-on. The CatBox import step there reads from either a still-running Decypharr / Zurg or a Real-Debrid hashlist export; if you've already retired RD, the JSON export path is available. On a TorBox + Usenet hybrid stack, the arrs route to whichever backend has each release, and ElfHosted's stack templates handle this combination natively.
Troubleshooting
ElfZyclops returns no results for an item I expect to find
ElfZyclops is a shared cache, not a full NewsNab indexer. It surfaces what other ElfHosted tenants have recently searched for. Long-tail or older items often need a third-party NewsNab subscription (Drunken Slug, NZBGeek, NZBPlanet) to be found.
Playback fails or pauses partway through on NzbDAV-backed items
NzbDAV pulls articles from your Usenet provider on demand. A pause or failure usually indicates either incomplete obfuscation on the post (missing PAR2 / segments) or a provider-side retention gap. The arr will mark the item failed and re-search; ElfHosted's NzbDAV deployment also runs the realtime / repair scanner that catches a lot of these proactively.
My Sonarr / Radarr quality profiles produce different release types now
Real-Debrid grabs are typically remuxes or large WEB-DL pulls (the cache prefers big, popular releases). Usenet has the same shapes available but the search ranking is different. If you notice quality drift, adjust your custom formats / profile cutoffs in Radarr / Sonarr; the TRaSH Guides for movies and series are a good baseline.
LitterBox flags way more torrents than I expected
That's typical for libraries that have been through one or more RD account purges. Run the deep probe to confirm the count is real, then bulk-delete with confidence; the dashboard shows a sample before you confirm.
How do I get help?
- For general use of the individual tools, refer to each app's upstream site
- For specific support re your ElfHosted configuration, see the ElfHosted support options
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