x4u beta coming soon for patrons
x4u is a private, self-hosted library for your adult video collection. It runs on your own computer, finds every video in the folders you give it, identifies them through StashDB, and serves your library to your browser, phone, TV and VR headset. One program, no database server, no account with us.
This post covers everything in x4u as of the upcoming release.
x4u = Stash Lite. It offers a way to turn your mainstream adult collection into a premium, self-hosted experience just like Stash, but does not dive deep into the metadata management and other power-user features that Stash or Vexxx offer.
The website: x4u.ca
x4u.ca is the home for x4u's documentation:
Getting started (x4u.ca/getting-started): step-by-step setup, covering folders, StashDB, phones, the Quest, TV, movies and bringing over a Stash library.
Features (x4u.ca/features): a page per feature, each with a short demo clip.
VR (x4u.ca/vr): the VR Theatre in detail, plus a guide to watching on Meta Quest 3, 3S and 2 from your PC.
Support (x4u.ca/support): the full in-app Help, searchable, with answers to common questions.
What's new (x4u.ca/changelog): every release's notes, plus what's coming in the next version.
x4u vs Stash (x4u.ca/x4u-vs-stash): how the two differ, for anyone deciding or switching.
Report a problem (x4u.ca/report): writes up an issue with the useful part of x4u's log, with your file names hidden, ready to send as a Patreon message.
At a glance
Runs on your computer. Windows, macOS and Linux. ffmpeg is included on Windows and Linux.
Identifies your library automatically from StashDB, and from ThePornDB, FansDB or any other stash-box you add.
Plays everywhere on your network: browser, phone, tablet, VR headset, DeoVR, HereSphere and IPTV apps.
A full VR player built into the headset's browser, with nothing to install on the headset.
Never changes your files. No renaming, moving or rewriting of your videos.
Private. Your library stays on your computer. The only things sent out are the lookups needed to identify scenes, and they go to the services you connect with your own keys.
Library and identification
Add your video folders, and x4u fingerprints each video in the background and names scenes, performers, studios and tags from StashDB. Each scene is named as soon as its own fingerprints are ready, so a large library starts filling in within minutes.
More stash-boxes: add ThePornDB, FansDB or any other stash-box, each with your own key, in the order you want them asked. StashDB's tags are the standard; tags from other boxes are mapped onto StashDB's or left off.
Review: when there are several candidates, you choose; x4u never picks one for you by length alone. You can search every box at once, or look a video up by its fingerprint whatever the file is called.
Wrong match? Find the right one: replaces a bad match, and x4u won't make that match again.
Daily upkeep: corrected titles, newly credited performers, new photos and performer merges on StashDB reach your library on their own.
Copies: duplicates and other-quality copies of the same scene are grouped, with a suggested copy to keep.
Missing videos: a moved or missing video can be re-linked to its scene, keeping its history, rating, markers and playlists.
Compilations: split one into parts by hand, at your markers, or with Find scenes, which detects where each scene starts. Parts take no extra disk space.
Offline images: every StashDB picture your library uses is saved locally at full quality, so pages load instantly and work offline.
Browsing and watching
Feed: one scene per screen, swiped like TikTok, in a For you order based on what you favourite, rate, watch and follow, or shuffled.
Library: search and filter by performer, studio, tag, VR, portrait, favourites, ratings, scripts and markers. Save any search, filter and sort under a name.
Search everything (Ctrl+K): scenes, performers, studios and tags at once.
Performers, Studios and Tags pages. Performer pages show who they appear with most and each performer's age in a scene.
Player: timeline thumbnails, markers as chapters with preview clips, A–B loop, speed, subtitles (.srt/.vtt beside the video), keyboard shortcuts, and quality switching that steps down by itself when a connection can't keep up.
Playlists and Watch later, played straight through or shuffled.
Continue watching, favourites, 1–5 star ratings and History.
Stats: watch time by week, month, year or all time; your most-watched performers, studios and tags; and how much of your library you've played.
Movies
Gather a film's scenes into a movie with front and back covers, studio, release date, running time, director, synopsis and cast.
Look a film up by title on ThePornDB (with your key) or in the Movie-Fy index of over 600,000 films. The index is downloaded once and searched on your computer, so your searches stay private. You can also paste a store page from Adult Empire, Evil Angel, Adult Time and others.
The film's scene list shows which scenes you have and which you don't. A scene added to your library later goes into its place by itself.
Any playlist can be turned into a movie.
Galleries
Folders and zips of pictures in your library folders show as galleries, laid out in uncropped rows like a photo library.
Galleries can be linked to any number of scenes, and they open in the VR Theatre too.
Tracking
See how much of each performer's and studio's catalogue you have and what you're missing.
Follow anyone on StashDB, even performers or studios with none of their scenes in your library. You can keep your follows in step with your StashDB favourites.
New releases are grouped by who they're from, and a Wanted list clears itself as scenes arrive.
New-release alerts: an optional push notification, at most once a day, when someone you follow has a new scene that isn't in your library.
VR
x4u includes its own VR player, the VR Theatre, which opens straight from the headset's browser (Quest, Pico and others).
180° and 360° in side-by-side, top-and-bottom, fisheye and mono layouts, plus flat 3D. Formats are read from file names the way VR players read them.
A curved library wall with shelves (Continue watching, For you, Favourites, Playlists, saved searches), full search, and Performer and Studio walls.
A dock that stays out of the way while you watch: scrubbing with thumbnails, chapters, Up next, volume, speed, picture settings (brightness, contrast, depth), subtitles and a reclining mode.
Flat videos play on a theatre-sized screen in Home, Cinema or IMAX sizes.
8K video streams in short segments over Wi-Fi without re-encoding, with 60 fps played at 120 Hz.
Passthrough: SexLikeReal passthrough videos play in your own room with the performer cut out.
Galleries and a scene's pictures open on their own panel beside the video.
Prefer another player? DeoVR and HereSphere can open your x4u library directly, with VR formats, markers, previews and funscripts. HereSphere also sends ratings and favourites back to x4u.
Interactive toys
Handy support: put a .funscript beside its video and the Handy follows playback on your computer, phone or headset, with nothing to install. Stroke range and timing can be adjusted.
More than one script per video (for example video.soft.funscript and video.hard.funscript), with the choice remembered for each video.
Scripts page: play any funscript without its video, with the page closed or the phone locked. Fourteen x4u original scripts are included, from an eight-minute warm-up to a 45-minute marathon.
Markers from ThePornDB (with your own key) for the videos it has marked.
TV
x4u can serve your library to IPTV apps such as TiviMate and IPTV Smarters, by Xtream Codes login or an M3U playlist with an XMLTV guide.
Channels of your own scenes run round the clock: Everything, Recently added, Favourites, and one for each studio, followed performer and playlist.
TV is off until you turn it on in Settings.
Coming from Stash or Vexxx
Settings → Stash and Vexxx brings over your ratings, watch history, resume points, markers, favourites (as follows), playlists, stash-box IDs and gallery links, matched by file.
Previews, timeline thumbnails and fingerprints Stash already made are copied over, so there are no weeks of regenerating.
Works from Stash's database or from an export (for another computer or Docker). Stash's own database is only read, never changed.
Your data and safety
Never changes your files. The recycle bin hides a scene straight away; videos are deleted from disk only when you empty the bin or delete one there, after a final warning and a fresh backup.
Daily and weekly backups, each checked as it's made, plus an optional copy to another drive, network folder or cloud-synced folder. Your library is also backed up before every upgrade.
Moving to a new computer brings everything, including previews and thumbnails, in one library file.
x4u stops making previews before your data drive gets full.
Phones and tablets connect behind a PIN. For use away from home we recommend Tailscale rather than opening a port.
Requirements
Windows 10/11 (64-bit): double-click x4u.exe.
macOS: install ffmpeg first (brew install ffmpeg), then run ./x4u from Terminal.
Linux (x64 or ARM64): run ./x4u.
A free StashDB account and API key for identification. ThePornDB and other stash-box keys are optional.
For VR: a headset with a WebXR browser, such as Meta Quest's browser, on the same network.
x4u opens in your browser at http://localhost:8686. The README in each download and Help inside the app cover setup, including connecting phones and headsets.
Downloads
Any release you download is yours to keep using; there's no licence check and nothing expires. New versions are posted here as they're released.
This is a beta
x4u is in active development and is updated frequently. Please report bugs and ideas through a message on Patreon; x4u.ca/report helps you put a report together. Answers to common questions are at x4u.ca/support and under Help in the app.