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CatBox [Standalone]
$9.00 / month with a 7-day free trial and a $1.00 sign-up fee
The TorBox-safe way to plug Sonarr/Radarr into a Plex/Jellyfin/Emby library — without violating TorBox’s 30-day retention policy. Bring your own TorBox account.
A managed CatBox instance: a TorBox-backed library shim that fills the same role Decypharr plays for Real-Debrid, but with an architecture designed specifically for TorBox’s policies. Sonarr/Radarr submit releases via the qBittorrent API, CatBox virtualises them as symlinks, and only materialises the real file in your TorBox account when you actually press play.
This standalone CatBox does not include a TorBox subscription — you bring your own paid TorBox account and paste the API key into CatBox. If you’d like TorBox included in the price, see the Hobbit / Ranger / Halfling / Nazgul bundles with the TorBox variation — those ship CatBox + TorBox + arrs + media server as one bundled stack.
Sonarr and Radarr think they're talking to qBittorrent. CatBox quietly routes everything to TorBox — and only adds items when you press play, keeping you well inside TorBox's 30-day retention policy. BYO TorBox account.
⚠️ Standalone vs Bundled — Read This First
- This product (CatBox Standalone, $9/mo): just the shim. You provide your own paid TorBox subscription and paste the API key into CatBox. Useful if you already have a TorBox account, or if you want to drop CatBox alongside an existing ElfHosted stack that didn't ship with TorBox.
- Hobbit / Ranger / Halfling / Nazgul + TorBox variation: bundled stack — CatBox plus a TorBox subscription, plus arrs, plus your media server (Plex/Emby/Jellyfin). One price, no separate TorBox account to manage. See the Personal Media Stacks.
Pick standalone CatBox if you already pay TorBox; pick a bundle if you want it all included.
What is CatBox?
CatBox is ElfHosted's TorBox-backed library shim. It sits between any qBittorrent-compatible client (Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, Readarr, Prowlarr, custom scripts) and TorBox, filling the same arr-stack role that Decypharr plays for Real-Debrid — but with an architecture designed specifically for TorBox's policies.
Items submitted through the qBit API are virtual in your library: CatBox creates symlinks pointing into a virtual WebDAV tree, and no actual TorBox add happens at this point. When your media server probes those files for metadata, CatBox serves synthetic or crowdsourced probe data so the probe completes without ever touching TorBox. Only when you press play does CatBox add the item to TorBox, fetch a presigned URL, and proxy the stream.
Why CatBox? The TorBox 30-day policy problem
TorBox's policy prohibits automated tools from artificially keeping items in a user's library beyond 30 days. A media server (Plex / Jellyfin / Emby) constantly probes its library for codec / resolution / runtime metadata, thumbnail generation, intro detection, transcoding decisions, and so on. If those probes touch raw TorBox content, every probe re-asserts the item in TorBox and quietly extends its retention indefinitely — the exact "automated retention" pattern TorBox's policy forbids.
CatBox solves this with two design choices:
- Virtual library — items aren't added to TorBox until you press play.
- Pseudo / crowdsourced probe data — probes against virtual files return synthetic or community-captured metadata, never re-fetching from TorBox.
The result: TorBox sees only what you actually watch, your library can be arbitrarily large, and your usage stays well within TorBox's policy. CatBox is the only safe way to use TorBox with Plex / Jellyfin / Emby large libraries.
Key Features
- 🔁 qBittorrent API emulation: Sonarr / Radarr / Lidarr / Readarr point at CatBox as a qBit client and don't know the difference. No automation rewrite required.
- 🪞 Virtual library via symlinks: releases land as symlinks under
/storage/symlinks/downloads/<category>/..., pointing into a virtual WebDAV tree. Nothing is added to TorBox at submission time. - 🧪 Pseudo / crowdsourced probe data: media-server scans get accurate codec / resolution / runtime metadata without re-fetching from TorBox, opportunistically captured from real-playback events across the platform.
- ▶️ On-demand materialisation: when you press play, CatBox adds the item to TorBox, fetches a presigned URL, and proxies the stream. After playback, the item is removed from TorBox and the symlink stays. Next playback re-materialises.
- 🔍 Torznab indexer for Prowlarr: exposes TorBox's cache as a first-class search target so Sonarr / Radarr see cached releases up-front rather than discovering them blind.
- ✅ Cached-only by default: only accepts releases already in TorBox's global cache (using TorBox's
add_only_if_cachedflag). Optional opt-in for uncached fetches via the CatBox UI. - 🔑 Per-tenant TorBox API key: hot-swap your key in the CatBox UI at
/ui/settings, no restart required. - 🩺 Background availability check: CatBox polls TorBox's cache so the library accurately reflects what's playable right now; items dropped from cache are flagged unavailable.
- 🔄 Updates handled: ElfHosted keeps CatBox current alongside the rest of your stack.
Technical Specifications
- 🔌 Compatibility: Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, Readarr, Prowlarr (qBittorrent API emulation + Torznab); Plex, Jellyfin, Emby (via the symlink/WebDAV layer).
- 🎟️ TorBox subscription: NOT included in this standalone product. You supply your own TorBox API key.
- 🗂️ Categories: qBit category must match the arr name —
radarr,sonarr,radarr4k,sonarr4k,sonarranime(becomes the top-level directory in the symlink tree). - 🌐 Endpoints inside your stack: qBit API at
http://catbox:8080, Torznab athttp://catbox:8080/torznab. - 🔐 Authentication: bring your own TorBox API key (paste into CatBox UI at
/ui/settings; SSO upstream is the real auth layer). - 📂 Storage layout: symlinks under
/storage/symlinks/downloads/<category>/, virtual content under/storage/torbox/. - 📦 State store: per-tenant SQLite catalog for releases, settings, and the API key.
How CatBox compares to Decypharr
Decypharr (Real-Debrid) and CatBox (TorBox) play the same role — qBit-API shim that routes arrs to a debrid backend — but the architectures differ because the policies differ:
- Decypharr / Real-Debrid: RD has no automated-retention restriction, so Decypharr can add items to RD at submission time and let a WebDAV mount expose them to the media server directly.
- CatBox / TorBox: TorBox's 30-day policy means CatBox must keep the library virtual and only materialise on play, with synthetic probe data shielding TorBox from media-server scans.
Don't try to point Decypharr at TorBox — the architecture isn't right for it, and you'd risk the 30-day policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this product include a TorBox subscription?
No. Standalone CatBox is just the shim ($9/mo). You bring your own paid TorBox account and paste the API key into CatBox. If you want TorBox included in the price, buy a Hobbit / Ranger / Halfling / Nazgul bundle and pick the TorBox variation — those ship CatBox + TorBox + arrs + media server as one stack.
Why not just point Decypharr at TorBox?
Because TorBox's 30-day retention policy forbids automated tools from artificially keeping items in your library. Media-server probes against raw TorBox content would re-assert items on every scan and extend retention indefinitely. CatBox's virtual-library + synthetic-probe-data design is the only safe way around that.
Will my library look incomplete?
No. Your media server sees a complete library of any size with full metadata for every item. TorBox just doesn't see those items in your account until you press play.
What happens when I press play?
CatBox adds the item to your TorBox account, fetches a presigned URL, and proxies the stream from TorBox through CatBox's WebDAV proxy to your media server. After playback, the item is removed from TorBox; the next playback re-materialises it.
Can I search TorBox's cache from Prowlarr?
Yes. CatBox exposes a Torznab endpoint at http://catbox:8080/torznab — add it as a Generic Torznab indexer in Prowlarr (no API key) and sync. Cached-on-TorBox releases become first-class search results.
Can I fetch uncached releases?
By default no — CatBox uses TorBox's add_only_if_cached flag so it never asks TorBox to fetch new content. There's a UI toggle to opt in to uncached fetches (useful for private-tracker users where ratio matters, or rare content not in cache); they're queued separately so they don't interfere with playback.
Where do I get a TorBox account?
Sign up at torbox.app directly — they sell their subscriptions; we don't resell standalone TorBox. Once you have an account, your API key lives at the TorBox account page.
Do I need to do any setup?
A fresh ElfHosted Arrs deployment (or an ElfBot reset) on a TorBox-bundled stack is pre-configured for CatBox — just paste your TorBox API key. For existing deployments, add CatBox as a qBittorrent download client (host catbox, port 8080, SSL off, category matching the arr name).
Where can I see what's connected?
The CatBox UI shows connected qBit clients (each labelled by the username they configured) and the current state of your virtual library.
CatBox is the supported path for any TorBox-backed media-server stack on ElfHosted. Bring your TorBox subscription (this standalone product does not include one), paste the API key, point your arrs at it. Or, if you'd rather have it bundled, pick the TorBox variation on a Hobbit/Ranger/Halfling/Nazgul. See the CatBox docs for the full architecture write-up.
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