Your NAS library, on the big screen.
FolderVideoPlayer is a fast, quiet SMB video player for Apple TV. Point it at the shared folders on your own network — your NAS, your Mac, your files — and the whole library opens up on your TV, with thumbnails that never slow down, no matter how big it gets.
Everything a folder of videos deserves on a TV
No transcoding servers, no photo-library tax, no “supported cloud only”. Just your files, presented properly.
Browse any SMB share
Works with Synology, QNAP, Windows, macOS, Linux — anything that speaks SMB. Find your share by name over Bonjour or type its address. Folders, sort, tags, and all the deep paths you actually keep.
Smart thumbnail caching
Every thumbnail is generated once and never again — even in libraries of 5,000+ videos browsing stays fast. Frames are kept on the TV and alongside your files on the share, so nothing is rebuilt for a second device either.
Tags that travel with you
Tag your videos on the TV, see them on your Mac, iPhone or a second Apple TV. Tags live in a small folder on your own share — synced through your network, never through a server.
Picks up where you stopped
Quit mid-episode, come back days later — it offers to carry on from the exact spot. Play order and preferences are remembered on the device, so the TV behaves like yours.
Your Mac, same library
FolderVideoPlayer for macOS is free, and it reads the same shares your Apple TV does — tags, thumbnails and favourites you make on the Mac show up on the TV, and the other way round.
Tag from the Mac, see it on the TV
Type a tag and it is applied — no save step. Tags publish into the .FolderVideoPlayer folder on your share, so the Apple TV, a second Mac or an iPhone pointed at the same share sees them too.
Thumbnails made once, for every screen
The Mac writes the poster frames a library needs onto the share — and the Apple TV reads those same pictures instead of generating them over Wi-Fi. One library scanned on the Mac, instant browsing on the TV.
A proper Mac player on top
Whole folders back to back or on loop, favourites and a filterable playlist — playing whatever VLC opens, .mkv, .avi, .flv and more.
Finds duplicates in a huge library
Every video you play is fingerprinted as you watch — copies are then grouped with the keeper already chosen and the reason shown. Preview before you decide, tags from a discarded copy move to the one you keep, and nothing is ever deleted: duplicates go to the Trash, or to a folder you name on a share that has none.
FolderVideoPlayer for Mac
Download for MacFree on GitHub — signed and notarized by Apple, with updates built in.
Real screens, full screen
Captured from FolderVideoPlayer running on an Apple TV 4K — this is what your living room sees.
Your TV meets your files. Nothing else.
Open the app on Apple TV
No login, no sign-up, no account to create. Open it and the app looks for shares on your network.
0 accountsPick your SMB share
Choose it from the list Bonjour discovers, or type the address. Credentials live only in the tvOS Keychain — and they need read & write rights on the share for tags and thumbnails to be saved.
SMB + KeychainBrowse. Play. Enjoy.
The whole library — folders, tags, thumbnails — streams straight from your share over your local network.
nothing leaves homePrivacy by construction
FolderVideoPlayer collects nothing — no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising SDKs, no cloud of any kind. The only thing it talks to is the file share you point it at, on your own network.
Something not right? Tell us.
We reply by email, usually within a day or two. The more you tell us, the faster we can help.