Potato

Your own films and shows, with posters.

Potato plays the films and shows on your computer or network drive, on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Point it at a shared folder and it finds the posters, synopses and episode names.

Potato on a Mac: a sidebar of TV shows and movies beside a grid of film posters, with “8 new” and “16 new” badges on shows.
Mac. Each show counts its new episodes.
Potato's Home screen on iPhone: recently added shows and films as posters.
iPhone. Home shows what's arrived.
Potato's Library on iPhone, filtered to Movies, with titles and years under each poster.
The library, by shows, movies or what you haven't watched.
Potato on Apple TV: rows of Continue Watching, Recently Added and Unwatched posters on a dark background.
Apple TV. Pick up where you left off, from the sofa.
A film's page on Mac: title, year, age rating, length, genres, score, synopsis, a Play button and the time it would end.
Every title gets a page, and Play tells you when it would end.

Live

Live turns your library into television. Potato sorts what you own into channels, such as Kids, Top Rated TV and Comedy Movies, and lays them out in a guide. Channels run on a clock, so you join a film already playing, as you did with cable. Hold the button to start it from the beginning.

Potato's Live guide on Apple TV: a preview of the channel playing now, and a grid of channels with programmes laid out against the time.
Apple TV. The guide, with what's on now. Live is on Apple TV and Mac.

What it does

Plays
MP4, MKV, AVI, DivX and Xvid, H.264 and H.265.
Reads from
Shared folders (SMB) on a computer or network drive.
Runs on
iPhone and iPad (iOS 18), Apple TV (tvOS 18), Mac (macOS 15).
Away from home
Give a share its home address and its Tailscale or VPN address. Potato tries each in turn.
In a browser
A Mac can share your library with any web browser on your network, behind a passcode.
Downloads
Copy a film, season or show to iPhone, iPad or Mac and watch it offline. You set how much space they use.
Remembers
Where you stopped in every film and episode.
Account
None.

What it doesn't do

Potato doesn't sell or rent films; it plays files you already have. It shows no ads and doesn't track what you watch. The privacy policy lists the little that leaves your device, and why.