AetherDocs

Aether

Aether

The user guide for Aether — a media player for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Vision Pro that brings your own servers, shares and files into one library.

Aether plays your own media. It connects to the media servers, network shares and files you already have — Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Silo, Nexus, SMB, WebDAV, IPTV playlists and files on the device — and merges them into one library on every Apple screen. Aether does not provide, host or distribute any content.

What Aether does

  • One library across every source. The same film on two servers appears once; Aether picks the best copy to play, prefers a downloaded copy, and lets you choose a Default Server — or a specific copy when you start playback.
  • Plays practically anything. MKV, AVI, MPEG-TS and the rest play through Apple's own player wherever possible — keeping Picture in Picture, AirPlay, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision — with fallbacks for the formats Apple cannot decode. See Playback.
  • Every track, your languages. Audio and subtitle languages with fallbacks, styled subtitles, sidecar subtitle files, on-device text recognition for picture-based subtitles, and online subtitle search with OpenSubtitles. See Audio and subtitles.
  • Home built from your library. Continue Watching, Up Next, Trending, Top Rated, collections, genres and people, with rails you can rename and reorder, plus a Calendar, an Inbox and Ask Aether recommendations.
  • Offline. Download titles for playback with no connection, including MKV and AVI.
  • Live TV. Bring your own M3U playlist, Xtream Codes account or HDHomeRun tuner, with an XMLTV guide — or use the Live TV of your Plex, Emby or Nexus server.
  • Skip intros and credits. From your server's markers, or community intro data where the server has none.
  • Profiles. Up to five, each with its own server sign-ins, library access, PIN and age limit.
  • Sync. Resume positions, watchlist, ratings, Home layout and settings follow you through iCloud.
  • A private theater on Vision Pro. Cinema mode with screen sizes from Medium to IMAX and Wall, seat rows, and 3D for frame-packed and spatial video.

Start here

  1. Platforms and requirements — which devices, which OS versions, and what it costs.
  2. Getting started — install, first run and your first source.
  3. Connecting sources — every source type, step by step.

Then: Playback, Audio and subtitles, Settings, Troubleshooting and the FAQ.