EnRoute

If you’ve been down the self-hosted media server rabbit hole long enough, you’ve probably got a few moving parts running — a download client here, an indexer manager there, maybe Plex or Jellyfin at the front. At some point you want a single, clean interface where you (or your family) can just say “I want to watch that” and have everything happen automatically behind the scenes. That’s where Seerr (formerly Overseerr) comes in.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what each piece does and exactly how to wire them together.

What is Radarr?

Radarr is a movie collection manager. It watches RSS feeds from your configured indexers, automatically grabs releases, sorts them into your library folder, and renames them to match your preferred naming convention. Think of it as the obsessive-librarian half of your movie setup — you never have to touch a torrent manually again.

What is Sonarr?

Sonarr does the same thing, but for TV shows. It tracks seasons and episodes, handles season packs, and keeps your library updated automatically as new episodes air. If Radarr owns your movie shelf, Sonarr owns the TV cabinet.

What is Seerr (Formerly Overseerr)?

Seerr is a request management and media discovery frontend that sits on top of your media server. Instead of digging into Radarr or Sonarr directly, users get a polished, Netflix-style interface where they can browse and request movies and shows. Those requests route automatically to Radarr or Sonarr, which handle the rest.

It’s especially useful if other people share your media setup and you don’t want them anywhere near your backend services. They just request, and it appears.

Connecting Radarr to Seerr

Step 1: Grab Your Radarr API Key

1. Open Radarr in your browser
2. Go to Settings → General
3. Find the API Key field and copy it

Step 2: Add Radarr as a Service in Seerr

1. In Seerr, go to Settings → Services
2. Click Add Radarr Server
3. Fill in the connection details:
   • Name — anything descriptive, e.g. Radarr
   • Hostname or IP — your server’s local IP or localhost
   • Port — 7878 (Radarr’s default)
   • API Key — paste the one you just copied
   • Use SSL — toggle on if you’re behind a reverse proxy with HTTPS
4. Click Test to verify the connection
5. Once the test passes, set a default quality profile and root folder — Seerr won’t route requests without these
6. Click Save

Connecting Sonarr to Seerr

Step 1: Grab Your Sonarr API Key

1. Open Sonarr in your browser
2. Go to Settings → General
3. Copy the API Key

Step 2: Add Sonarr as a Service in Seerr

1. In Seerr, go to Settings → Services
2. Click Add Sonarr Server
3. Fill in the details:
   • Hostname or IP — your Sonarr host
   • Port — 8989 (Sonarr’s default)
   • API Key — paste it in
   • Use SSL — toggle if behind HTTPS
4. Click Test
5. Set your default quality profile, root folder, and language profile
6. Click Save

A Few Things Worth Knowing

• Running separate 4K instances? You can add both your standard and 4K Radarr/Sonarr instances to Seerr separately, then let users choose which quality to request. Works great.
• Library sync happens on startup. After saving each service, Seerr will sync with Radarr and Sonarr and automatically mark anything already in your library as available — no duplicate downloads.
• Notifications are built in. Hook up Discord, email, or Slack in Seerr’s notification settings so users get pinged when their request is ready to watch.
• User permissions are granular. You can let some users auto-approve their own requests while others require manual approval — handy if you don’t want your friends requesting every new release in 4K.

Wrap-Up: What I Learned

Honestly, this was one of the smoother self-hosted setups I’ve done. If you already have Radarr and Sonarr running, adding Seerr on top is maybe 15–20 minutes of work, most of which is just copying API keys.

The one thing that tripped me up: you must set a default root folder and quality profile for each service connection before Seerr will route requests. Skip that step and requests will just sit there in limbo with no error message to explain why. Save yourself the head-scratching and configure those right away.

The bigger takeaway is how well these tools are designed to work together. The API-key-based integration is dead simple, the test button in Seerr actually tells you what’s wrong if something’s misconfigured, and once it’s running it’s completely invisible — which is exactly what you want from infrastructure like this.

If you haven’t checked out Seerr yet and you’re already running a self-hosted media stack, it’s well worth the setup time.