Bazarr

Sonarr and Radarr grab the video. Bazarr grabs the subtitles — and then keeps grabbing them until it finds a version that is actually in sync, which is the part that makes it worth running rather than doing this by hand.

Set it up after Sonarr and Radarr, because it works by reading their libraries.

Bazarr is a companion to Sonarr and Radarr that manages subtitles.

1. Automatic downloads for anything in your library that is missing subtitles
2. Many providers at once — OpenSubtitles, Subscene, Podnapisi, Addic7ed and others, with fallback
3. Scoring — rejects subtitles that do not match your release, which is what stops the out-of-sync problem
4. Sync tools — shift timing, or auto-sync against the audio track using ffsubsync
5. Upgrades — replaces a mediocre subtitle when a better-scoring one appears
6. Per-language profiles, including forced-only subtitles for foreign dialogue in an English film

1. The container

  bazarr:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/bazarr:latest
    container_name: bazarr
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - PUID=99
      - PGID=100
      - UMASK=022
      - TZ=Europe/London
    volumes:
      - /mnt/user/appdata/bazarr:/config
      - /mnt/user/data:/data
    ports:
      - 6767:6767

docker compose up -d bazarr

2. First run

http://<host-ip>:6767.

Settings → General → Security: set an authentication method and credentials. Bazarr ships with none.

3. Connect Sonarr

Settings → Sonarr, toggle Enabled.

Test must go green before saving. Red here is nearly always the address — use the container name, not an IP.

Under the same page, Minimum Score for series defaults to 90. Leave it. Lowering it is how you end up with subtitles for a different cut of the episode.

4. Connect Radarr

Settings → Radarr, same pattern:

Movie minimum score defaults to 70. Also fine.

After saving both, Bazarr does an initial sync. System → Tasks shows it working through your library — this takes a while on a large one.

5. Add subtitle providers

Settings → Providers → +

Worth having:

• OpenSubtitles.com — the big one. Needs a free account; the free tier has a daily download cap. A VIP account raises it.
• Podnapisi — no account needed, decent European coverage
• Addic7ed — good for TV, needs an account, aggressive rate limiting
• Subf2m, Supersubtitles — useful fallbacks

Add three or four, not fifteen. Every provider is queried on every search, so a long list makes searches slow and gets you rate-limited faster.

6. Create a language profile

Settings → Languages → Language Profiles → +

A profile is a list of languages in priority order plus a cutoff:

For foreign-language films where you only want subtitles on the non-English dialogue, add a second language entry with Forced ticked. Bazarr treats forced subtitles as a separate track.

Then set it as the default: Settings → Languages → Default Settings, enabling it for both Series and Movies so newly added items inherit it automatically. Without this, every new show arrives with no profile and Bazarr silently ignores it.

7. Apply the profile to existing media

Series or Movies in the top nav → select all → Mass Edit → assign the language profile.

Bazarr then starts searching for everything missing. Expect a lot of activity for the first hour or so.

8. Turn on auto-sync

Settings → Subtitles, with advanced settings shown:

Auto-sync is the feature that makes Bazarr worth the disk space. It compares the subtitle timing to the actual audio and shifts it, which fixes the "subtitles are 4 seconds ahead" problem without you noticing it happened.

It is CPU-heavy. On a weak box, leave the threshold high so it only runs on subtitles it is likely to fix.

9. Check it worked

Pick an episode Bazarr says it grabbed:

ls /mnt/user/data/media/tv/Some.Show/Season\ 01/

You should see Episode.mkv and Episode.en.srt side by side. The language suffix is what Plex and Jellyfin use to label the track.

Updating

cd /opt/docker/media
docker compose pull bazarr
docker compose up -d bazarr

Provider APIs change often and Bazarr updates to match, so this is one worth keeping current. Diun will tell you when.

Backup

docker compose stop bazarr
sudo tar czf /mnt/user/backups/bazarr-$(date +%F).tar.gz -C /mnt/user/appdata bazarr
docker compose start bazarr

The database holds provider credentials, language profiles and the history of what it has already tried — losing it means re-searching your whole library.

Troubleshooting

"No file found" for everything. Path mismatch with Sonarr or Radarr. Compare the path Sonarr reports for a file against what Bazarr has mounted. This is the number one Bazarr problem and it is always mounts.

Provider returns 401 or "unauthorized". Wrong credentials, or you used opensubtitles.org where you meant .com.

Downloads stop after a while each day. Provider daily limit. OpenSubtitles free accounts get a modest quota. Add more providers, or pay for VIP.

Subtitles download but are out of sync. Turn on automatic synchronization (step 8). For a one-off, use the sync tool on the subtitle itself from the episode view.

Nothing is being searched at all. No language profile assigned. Mass Edit the library and check Settings → Languages → Default Settings is enabled for new items.

Wrong language downloaded. Some providers mislabel. Raise the minimum score, and drop the provider if it keeps happening.

High CPU constantly. Auto-sync running on everything. Raise the score threshold, or disable it and sync manually when needed.

Bazarr sees the series but the episode list is empty. Sonarr's sync has not completed. System → Tasks → Sync with Sonarr, run it manually and watch the log.

Where this sits in my lab

Bazarr runs on the Unraid box next to Sonarr and Radarr, sharing the same /data mount — which, as above, is the only reason it works without path mapping gymnastics.

It is the most "set and forget" thing in the stack. It has been running for months and the only time I open it is when a specific film has no decent subtitle and I want to force a manual search.