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, /ID, /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

Python 3.11 must be installed on your system. On Linux without 3.11, consider the Nix method. For setting up on Windows instead of Linux/OSX, see these notes.

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 .

Windows/PowerShell notes

• Run .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 instead of source venv/bin/activate
• Run .\venv\Scripts\insidious.exe instead of ./venv/bin/insidious
• Said executable can be double clicked directly in explorer to start
• In %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, a shortcut to the exe can be created to automatically start Insidious on login.

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 or https://youtu.be part of any URL can be replaced by the given address
• Use an extension like Privacy Redirect (Chrome, Firefox) to automatically transform YouTube links (enable "Invidious redirects" in the options and set Insidious's address for the instance).

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.