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Searching by Media IDs

As of v6, cross-seed can query Sonarr and Radarr instances to look up IMDb, TheTVDB, TheMovieDB, and TVMaze IDs for your content and forward the IDs to indexers resulting in far better search results and match rates.

If cross-seed doesn't find any IDs for an item, it will fall back to text-based searching.

tip

INFO The series or movie must be added in your instance of Sonarr or Radarr. You don't need to have actual media imported, but the entry must exist. "Missing" or "Unmonitored" status is valid.

We do not query any external metadata servers.

Benefits​

  • More Matches: Searches by unique ID reduce mismatches due to naming inconsistencies.
  • Less Unnecessary Snatches: Search results from indexers will have fewer bogus (but sometimes similar-looking) results.
  • Lighter on Trackers: ID-based searches use cheaper and more accurate search capabilities supported by many indexers, relying less on expensive text-based search.

Requirements​

  • Any Sonarr instances running at least v4, and/or
  • Any Radarr instances running at least v3

Configuration​

  1. Retrieve API Keys
    1. Open Sonarr or Radarr WebUI.
    2. Go to Settings > General and copy the API Key.
  2. Construct URLs

Format URLs with your API keys:

# Replace with your Sonarr/Radarr URL and API key

http://localhost:8989/?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY
http://localhost:7878/?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY

# or, for Docker:

http://localhost:8989/?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY
http://radarr:7878/?apikey=YOUR_API_KEY
  1. Update config.js

Add these URLs to config.js under the sonarr and radarr keys:

module.exports = {
	// ... other settings ...
	sonarr: ["http://localhost:8989/?apikey=12345"],
	radarr: ["http://localhost:7878/?apikey=67890"],
};

For multiple instances (e.g., separate 4K libraries), list each URL in an array:

module.exports = {
	// ... other settings ...
	sonarr: [
		"http://localhost:8989/?apikey=12345",
		"http://localhost4k:8990/?apikey=54321",
	],
	radarr: [
		"http://localhost:7878/?apikey=67890",
		"http://localhost4k:7879/?apikey=09876",
	],
};

Many thanks to zakary for implementing this feature.