Media
See and control what's playing, and share your media folders with Home Assistant and other clients.
System Bridge shows what’s playing on your machine, lets you control it, and shares folders of media so other clients can browse and play them.
What’s playing
The media module reports the title, artist, album, artwork, position, length, volume, shuffle and repeat of what’s playing.
| Platform | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Linux | Any player that supports MPRIS, such as Spotify, VLC, mpv and most browsers, through playerctl. Install playerctl with your package manager. |
| Windows | The current Windows media session, read by the NowPlaying helper that comes with System Bridge. |
With several players open on Linux, System Bridge shows the first one playing, then the first one paused.
Controlling playback
In the web client
Open the Media page in the web client. The player at the top shows what’s playing, with:
- Previous, play or pause, and next in the middle.
- Stop on the left.
- The volume on the right. Hover over it, or focus it with the keyboard, to show volume down, mute and volume up. On a touch screen they’re always shown.
A button is greyed out when the player says it can’t do that, such as skipping on the last track.
Elsewhere
- Home Assistant: the integration’s media player shows and controls what’s playing, for machines running Windows. See Home Assistant.
- API: send
MEDIA_CONTROLwithPLAY,PAUSE,STOP,NEXT,PREVIOUS,VOLUME_UP,VOLUME_DOWNorMUTE. - Agents: the MCP server’s
system_bridge_media_controltool takes the same actions.
How each platform controls it
| Platform | How |
|---|---|
| Linux | playerctl controls the player the Media module shows. Volume up and down change it by 5%, and mute sets it to 0. |
| Windows | System Bridge presses the media keys, so it controls whichever app responds to them. |
Sharing media folders
Media directories are folders you share with clients that browse files, such as the Home Assistant media source. Your documents, downloads, home, music, pictures and videos folders are always shared. Add others for things like a recordings folder or a second drive.
- In the web client, open the Media page and scroll to Media directories.
- Under Add a directory, enter a Name, such as “Recordings”, and the folder’s Path. The folder must already exist.
- Select Add.
To stop sharing a folder, select the bin button next to it.
Clients list a shared folder’s files with GET_FILES, and download them from /api/media/file/data. Only common image, audio, video and document types up to 100 MB can be downloaded, and only from inside a shared folder.