In this post we will go through everything you need to do to get Radarr up and running and integrated with your Plex Media Server on Windows

First of all what is Radarr and how can it help you?  Radarr provides a means of automatically passing file index information (Torrent websites) to your download client (such as Utorrent) and then performing actions on the downloaded files.  For instance you may want files named in a certain way, metadata added and then moved to a network share

Installation

Download the Radarr install files from here.   Once downloaded extract the files to a folder and then run the Radarr.exe file as an administrator

This should do two things:

1. Open Radarr in your web browser

2. Create a folder called C:\ProgramData\Radarr

Close the web browser down and go back to the folder where you originally extracted the files.  For me this was C:\Temp\Radarr.develop.0.2.0.1293.windows\Radarr

Select all the contents of this folder and copy it to C:\ProgramData\Radarr\bin (you have to create the bin folder)

The contents of the C:\ProgramData\Radarr\bin folder should now look like the below

Right click on the C:\ProgramData\Radarr\bin\ServiceInstall.exe file and click Run As Administrator

This will then install Radarr as a service

Open the Windows Services applet (start>run>services.msc).  Find the Radarr service and double click it.  Click on the Log On tab and change this to an account that has write access to where your movies are stored.  Once you have done this restart the Radarr service

You should now be able to open a browser and go to http://127.0.0.1:7878/  which is your Radarr service

Media Management Settings

Click Settings, then click Media Management.  Change Advanced Settings to Shown.  Here are the settings I change and why:

Rename Movies: On
I don’t want to accept the movie name as its downloaded from the source, I want to use my own naming convention

Replace illegal Characters: On
Needed to copy to a Windows fileshare

Standard and Movie Folder Format.  I prefer these both to be the same so set them to:
{Movie Title} ({Release Year})

This should generate a movie name of:
C:\Movies\An Awesome Movie (2012)\An Awesome Movie (2012).mkv

 

All of the other options I leave as default

Profile Settings

Click Profiles, then change Advanced Settings to Shown.  Here you will have to decide whether the in-built profiles are suitable for your needs or if you will need to create a new profile.  We will come back to profiles later when we need to add one

Quality Settings

For me the HD-1080p profile is fine but I need to tweak the file sizes a bit.  To do this click Quality

I like to keep the file size for 140 minutes of video between 3GB and 6GB for all 1080p movies.  To do this just drag the slider bars as below

Indexers Settings

Click Indexers, this is where we need to configure our Torrent site.  Under options you can specify things like Minimum age and Retention (Usenet only)

Click the + and choose your Torrent provider, I will use Rarbg for this example so click the Rarbg button

Click the Test button and you should get a Test Succeeded message, then click Save

Download Client Settings

Click Download Client, leave all the options as the defaults and click the +

Choose your download client, I use Utorrent so select that

Configure your download client’s settings, my client is on another server so I enter that IP address.  Note that you will need to be able to communicate with your client on port 8080 so you may need to make changes to the firewall.  Click Test and you should see a Test Succeeded message, then click Save

If using Utorrent you will need to enable the Web Ui as below

Connection Settings

Click Connections, then click the + button and select Plex Media Server

Configure your Plex Media Server connection details then click Test, if you get a succeeded message click Save

Metadata Settings

Click Metadata, some users like to use metadata files that are saved inside the movie folders – if for instance you also use Kodi.  Click Kodi

Click the Enable button and then click Save

Security Settings

Click General and scroll down to security, change Authentication to basic set a username and password

Make sure the update branch is set to master and click Save

Adding Movies!

We are now ready to start adding some movies! Click Add Movies

Type the name of the movie you want to add to your Torrent client for download.  Click Select Path and enter the root path to your Movies

Leave the Monitor as Yes if you want Radarr to keep checking for the availability of this movie.  Set your availability – here I choose Physical/Web as its an old movie.  Choose a quality profile that your configured earlier

 

The example here is an old movie so click Already Exists

 

Radarr will scan your disk and see that the Movie is missing, click Search For Movie to initiate a search based on your preferences

The file will now start downloading in Utorrent

You can now keep adding movies which will queue and if monitored start downloading the moment they are available (according to your Min Availability)