xrun1 / insidious

Self-hosted alternative YouTube front-end

Insidious

Features ⬥ pip setup ⬥ Nix setup ⬥ NixOS setup ⬥ Usage ⬥ Shortcuts

Self-hosted alternative YouTube front-end.

Features

• Responsive sane interface
• Clean search results, no "People also watched" or massive shorts carousel
• Pulls data through yt-dlp or rotates through any working Invidious instance
• Loads video data directly from Google servers at full speed, HLS and DASH supported
• No ads, no tracking, no YouTube scripts and cookies
• Watch age-restricted videos without signing in
• Directly accessible player controls, always visible outside of the video when not playing in fullscreen
• Custom suggestions algorithm based on user-generated playlists, delivers content related to the current video rather than what was watched before and irrelevant popular junk
• Recent comments first
• Return YouTube Dislike integrated

Supported YouTube pages:

• Videos: /watch, /v/ID, /live/ID, /embed/ID, (start/t/list parameters OK)
• Shorts: /shorts/ID (uses standard interface)
• Clips: /clip/ID
• Searches: /results (including filtering/sorting)
• Hashtags: /hashtag/TAG
• Users: /user/ID, /user/ID/TAB, /user/ID/search
• Playlists: /playlist, /watch_videos?video_ids=eXaMPLE1,examPLE2,...
• Channels:
  • /NAME, /NAME/TAB, /NAME/search
  • /channel/ID, /channel/ID/TAB, /channel/ID/search
  • /c/ID, /c/ID/TAB, /c/ID/search
• RSS feeds:
  • For channels: /feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=ID
  • For playlists: /feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=ID

Missing/planned:

• SponsorBlock integration
• DeArrow integration
• Live chats
• "Most replayed" heatmap
• Auto-generated captions

Setup

Local installation with pip

Tested with Python 3.11 only. If unavailable on your system, consider the Nix method.

Local installation:

git clone https://github.com/xrun1/insidious
cd insidious
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

To start the server, assuming the current folder is the cloned repository:

./venv/bin/insidious

Add --help to the above command for info on supported options.

To update Insidious later, from the cloned repository folder:

git pull
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Direct run with Nix

Install the Nix package manager if needed, then:

nix run github:xrun1/insidious

Add -- --help to the above command for info on supported options.

System service on NixOS

With flakes: add this repository to your inputs, import the module, and enable the service.
Minimal example:

# flake.nix
{
    inputs = {
        nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
        insidious.url = "github:xrun1/insidious";
    };
    outputs = inputs @ { self, nixpkgs, ... }: {
        nixosConfigurations.example = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
            system = "x86_64-linux";
            specialArgs = { inherit inputs; };
            modules = [./configuration.nix ./insidious.nix];
        };
    };
}

# insidious.nix
{ inputs, ... }: {
    imports = [inputs.insidious.nixosModules.default];
    services.insidious.enable = true;
}

See os.nix for options beyond enable.

Usage

An up-to-date browser (released after December 2023) is required.

• Go to the address shown when you start the server, http://localhost:3030 by default
• The https://youtube.com part of any URL can be replaced by the given address
• For https://youtu.be/ID links, change to e.g. http://localhost:3030/v/ID.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
/	Focus search bar
Escape	Leave search bar
k, Space	Play/pause
f	Toggle fullscreen
c	Toggle subtitles if available
m	Toggle mute
-	Reduce volume
+	Increase volume
<	Reduce playback speed
>	Increase playback speed
h, j, Left	Seek back 5s
l, Right	Seek forward 5s
H, J	Seek back 30s
L	Seek forward 30s
,	Seek to previous frame
.	Seek to next frame
p	Seek to previous chapter
n	Seek to next chapter
P	Go to previous playlist video
N	Go to next playlist video /next suggestion

These shortcuts are always active without needing player focus.