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Navidrome: Stream Your Own Music Like Spotify

#selfhosted #docker #music #tutorial

Your painstakingly assembled music collection sits on a hard drive while you pay for Spotify on the go? Navidrome turns your own files into a streaming service: a web interface, mobile apps, access everywhere – and nobody analyzes what you listen to.

What are we building?

A personal music streaming server with Navidrome (v0.63.2) behind Traefik. By the end you browse your collection in the browser by album, artist and genre, stream on demand – and connect the app of your choice (Symfonium, DSub, play:Sub …) via the Subsonic standard to listen on the go too. Navidrome is remarkably resource-friendly (written in Go) and runs happily on a small VPS.

For audiobooks and podcasts it is the wrong tool, though: Navidrome thinks in albums and tracks, not chapters, and does not remember your listening position across devices. Use Audiobookshelf (Tutorial expected in September) for those – the two run side by side on the same server without trouble.

Prerequisites

Step by step

Step 1: Create the project

Navidrome needs two folders: one for the music (read-only) and one for its database/index. Create the project:

mkdir -p /opt/navidrome/data /opt/navidrome/music && cd /opt/navidrome
chown -R 1000:1000 /opt/navidrome
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Step 2: Get the music onto the server

Copy your music into the music folder – ideally cleanly structured (Artist/Album/Track.mp3). rsync over SSH is well suited for the transfer:

rsync -av --progress ~/Music/ root@YOUR_SERVER_IP:/opt/navidrome/music/
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What matters is good metadata: Navidrome reads artist, album, title, year and cover from the files' tags, not from the filenames. Poorly tagged files end up unsorted in the library.

Step 3: The Compose file

Replace YOUR_DOMAIN:

services:
  navidrome:
    image: deluan/navidrome:0.63.2
    restart: unless-stopped
    user: "1000:1000"
    environment:
      ND_MUSICFOLDER: /music
      ND_DATAFOLDER: /data
      ND_SCANNER_SCHEDULE: 1h        # look for new files hourly
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - ./music:/music:ro        # mount the music read-only
    networks: [proxy]
    labels:
      - "traefik.enable=true"
      - "traefik.http.routers.navidrome.rule=Host(`YOUR_DOMAIN`)"
      - "traefik.http.routers.navidrome.entrypoints=websecure"
      - "traefik.http.routers.navidrome.tls.certresolver=le"
      - "traefik.http.services.navidrome.loadbalancer.server.port=4533"

networks:
  proxy:
    external: true
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The :ro on the music volume is deliberate: Navidrome should only read your files, never modify them. ND_SCANNER_SCHEDULE: 1h has it look for new music hourly.

Step 4: Start and check the scan 

docker compose up -d
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Navidrome scans the library on first start. You can follow it in the log:

docker compose logs | grep -i scan
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Scanner: Completed processing folder audioCount=3 tracksImported=3
Scanner: Finished scanning all libraries duration=279ms
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tracksImported shows how many tracks were recognized. For large collections the first scan takes correspondingly longer.

Step 5: Create the admin account

Open https://YOUR_DOMAIN/. On first access you create the administrator account:

The Navidrome first-run screen for creating the admin account

Pick a username and a strong password. Afterwards you land directly in your library.

Step 6: Browse the library

The web interface shows your music by album, artist, genre and recently added – with cover grids and search:

The Navidrome album overview with the recognized albums and artists

Clicking an album opens the track list; double-clicking a track starts playback in the built-in player at the bottom:

An opened album with track list and the running player at the bottom

Step 7: Connect mobile apps via Subsonic

Navidrome speaks the Subsonic API – an established standard supported by many music apps. That's how you listen to your collection on the go with the app of your choice. In the app you enter:

  • Server: https://YOUR_DOMAIN
  • Username/password: your Navidrome account

Recommended apps: Symfonium or Tempo (Android), play:Sub or substreamer (iOS). Create separate user accounts for family members in the Navidrome settings instead of sharing the admin account.

💡 Transcoding saves mobile data

Navidrome can convert music to a lower bitrate while streaming (transcoding), e.g. for the road. You enable that per user or player in the settings under "Transcoding". So you stream in full quality at home and data-efficiently on mobile – without touching the original files.

When things go wrong

The library stays empty. Either there are no files in the mounted music folder, or the permissions are wrong. Check: docker compose logs | grep -i scan shows tracksImported. If it's 0, check the path and that the music folder is owned by UID 1000 (see Users & permissions).

Tracks appear unsorted or without cover art. The files' metadata is incomplete. Navidrome sorts by tags, not by filenames – re-tag the files (e.g. with Picard) and let Navidrome rescan.

New music doesn't show up. The scan only runs hourly (ND_SCANNER_SCHEDULE). Trigger an immediate scan via the refresh icon at the top of the web interface, or wait for the next interval.

The app won't connect. Almost always the server URL: it must be https://YOUR_DOMAIN (with https://, no path). Also check that username/password are exactly right – some apps additionally require enabling Subsonic compatibility, which is on by default in Navidrome.

Playback stutters on large FLAC files over mobile. The bandwidth isn't enough for the original. Enable transcoding for the mobile player (see the tip in step 7).

Maintenance & backups

  • Updates. Occasionally bump the image tag (deluan/navidrome:0.63.2) to the current version and docker compose up -d; Navidrome migrates its database at start. The rest runs through your normal update process.
  • Two-part backup. Your music is the valuable, irreplaceable part – it belongs in your Restic backup anyway (or you have it elsewhere). The data folder (Navidrome's index, play statistics, playlists, user accounts) is small and should be backed up too; in a pinch it can also be rebuilt by a fresh scan.
  • Low effort. After setup, maintenance mainly means dropping new music into the folder – the hourly scan handles the rest. As the collection grows, watch the disk space (df -h); music adds up fast.

This post first appeared on serverkueche.de.

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