Setting up local media sources

Home Assistant has a local media folder. Any audio or video files placed in this folder will be accessible via the media browser.

The easiest way to manage your local media is using Samba.

Using custom folders

It is also possible to set up custom and additional media directories. To do so, you’ll need to adjust the core configuration.

This example adds the two media folders to Home Assistant:

# Example configuration.yaml
homeassistant:
  media_dirs:
    media: /media
    recording: /mnt/recordings

The above example adds two media folders to Home Assistant. They will show up as “media” and “recording” in the media browser. You can add as many media folders as you like, using any name you want.

Home Assistant Container

If you run the Home Assistant Container you’ll need to add a Docker volume mount to the Home Assistant container, to mount in your local media.

The default path Home Assistant will try to use, is /media.

For example, if you are currently using this command for Docker:

docker run -d --name="home-assistant" \
  -v /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG:/config \
  -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro \
  --net=host \
  ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable

You’ll need to change it to this:

docker run -d --name="home-assistant" \
  -v /PATH_TO_YOUR_CONFIG:/config \
  -v /PATH_TO_YOUR_MEDIA:/media \
  -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro \
  --net=host \
  ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable

If you are using Docker compose, you can add a volume to your composition file in a similar fashion as listed in the command above.

Home Assistant Core

If you run Home Assistant Core you’ll need to create a media folder yourself.

By default, Home Assistant will look for the media folder inside your current Home Assistant configuration folder.

For example, if your current configuration folder is stored in:

/home/frenck/.homeassistant/

Then you’ll need to create a media folder in that same path:

/home/frenck/.homeassistant/media