The Ultimate Organizr V2 Setup Guide for Windows

If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you have software like Plex, Sonarr, Tautulli, or Jackett running on your home PC.

There’s nothing wrong with having lots of services running. In fact, most of you probably do (me included!).

However, the problem is that each one of those apps have their own IP address & port number. Trying to remember what each one is is very difficult.

The workaround? Most of us end up saving them as browser bookmarks. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using bookmarks, but I constantly have 20+ tabs open at any given time. Finding that 1 NZBget tab I know I have open is always a challege.

Rather than saving these sites as browser bookmarks – you can download Organizr instead. Here’s a sneak peak at what it looks like:

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What is Organizr?

Organizr is a frontend manager for all of your server applications. Basically, it organizes all of your commonly used websites or media applications into one dashboard. Organizr v2 is an awesome application for anyone running a homelab or media server.

Simply add of your favorites sites into Organizr and they will show up as “tabs” on the lefthand side. In just one click, you can open any of your sites in the same window.

It’s geared towards people who torrent media or use usenet, but you can add any commonly used sites like Facebook or Reddit into it as well. As of June 2020, Organizr integrates directly with :

• Plex
• Sonarr
• Radarr
• Lidarr
• Nzbget
• Sabnzb
• Emby
• Sickrage / Sickbeard

By integrate, it means they will open inside the application itself by using an embedded iframe. If the URL can’t be added inside an iframe, it will just open in a new browser tab instead of from within the app.

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Organizr v2 Feature List

You can think of Organizr as a one-stop shop for all of your media server applications. They obviously do a great job at “organizing” your bookmarks. But trust me – it’s much more than just a bookmark manager. It simplifies how to access all of your media sites, especially when you’re trying to access any of your media sites from your phone.

Here’s a list of all other features:

• Install via Docker, Ubuntu or Windows
• Responsive design (works great on mobile & desktop)
• Multiple sign-in options available (Plex, LDAP/Active Directory, Emby, or FTP)
• Ability to customize CSS
• Ability to put behind a reverse proxy or secure using SSL
• Ability to send emails
• Ability to grant “guest” users access

The program has over 200k lines of code, 5 star ratings on Gitter, and is actively under development which is important to me when looking for the best software organization software for media servers.

For example, I started looking into Heimdall which does something similar, but the latest update is from 2018.

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Part 1: How to Install Organizr v2 On Windows

For this guide, I am using Windows 10 Pro build 2004. There are Ubuntu and Docker install guides out there on the web, but for purposes of this guide I’m going to show you how to install and configure Organizr v2 on a Windows 10 Pro machine.

1: Download OWI (Organizr Windows Installer) file

Download the automated installer script from here: https://github.com/elmerfdz/OrganizrInstaller

Click Clone or download > Download as zip. Save to Downloads folder.

2: Extract OrganizrInstaller-Master file

Browse to the location you downloaded the compressed file. Right-click > Extract All to the default location.

3: Run Script as Administrator

Click into the extracted folder. Browse to the OWI folder or go to the path below. Change USERNAME to your Windows username.

C:\Users\USERNAME\Downloads\OrganizrInstaller-master\OrganizrInstaller-master\windows\owi

Right click the owi_installer.bat file and Run As Administrator. You must run as administrator or you risk corrupting your installation.

Note: If you receive a blue “Windows Protected your PC” popup message, you can safely ignore this. This just means Windows doesn’t recognize the file you are running. Click More Info and then Run Anyway.

4: Install Organizr v2

Press any key to continue. Press I and then Enter to begin the installation.

When it asks “Where do you want to install Nginx?” you can either press Enter to install in the default location C:\nginx, or specify an alternate location. For this guide, the default location is fine, so you can click Enter to continue.

When it asks “Do you want to create an SSL-enabled site?” click N for no. You would only want to create an SSL enabled site if you have a domain name and will opening a firewall port to launch Organizr remotely. If you’ll be accessing Organizr from winthin your home network, type N for no.

The script is now downloading and installing Nginx, PHP, NSSM, and a few other necessary components.

During the install, it will automatically detect the logged in user. If you want to use a different user, click Y. Otherwise to use the user you are logged in as – click N and enter your Windows password.

Note: PIN will not work here, it must be your password.

It will then begin to download Organizr v2 and finish configuring everything. Once the download is complete, it will delete the downloaded files and automatically launch Organizr in a web browser after you press any key to continue. It also launches a helpful First Time Setup page for you to reference.

If it doesn’t automatically launch the landing page or you close the Command Prompt page, you can type http://localhost to launch Organizr in any web browser.

5: First Time Setup

Install Type

Choose Personal license to use all features. Click Next.

Admin Info

Create a new account > Next. You can also use your Plex or Emby credentials for this step, but I prefer creating a separate account for this.

Security

Hash Key: Create a PIN number here.
Registration password: Create a password. (I use the same one used in the Admin Info section)
API key: Auto-generated

Database

Give your database a name and specify a location. I’m calling mine OrganizrDB and adding it to the C:\nginx directory since that’s already been created.

Click Test/Create Path to before clicking next just to make sure everything is working.

Verify

This is your last chance to verify everything is setup the way you want it. Take this opportunity to document everything if you haven’t already. You’ll need this info for future backup/restore purposes. I recommend saving this info in Lastpass or a secure vault, not in a text file on your computer.

6: Log In

Log in using the email address and password you specified.

Once you first log in, you’ll see a lot of tabs and info. I won’t be going over everything there is to go over, but I will be going over the basics in depth.

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Part 2: Adding Websites to Organizr Dashboard

The first thing you’ll want to do is just explore everything that’s available. It’s good to know what you can or can’t do. It’s also helps you figure out where some of the menu items are located.

On the left, you’ll see the Navigation button (the 3 lines).

After clicking the that button, you’ll notice right away there isn’t a “Home” tab. Before we add in our media sites, lets fix that.

Adding a “Homepage” tab

Click Tab Editor.

The Homepage tab has already been created for you but is disabled by default. Toggle the Active tab from Off to On and then refresh your page.

You should now see a Homepage tab! Later on you’ll be able to assign certain items (such as NZBGet downloads, or Plex Recently Added) to this homepage tab.

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Add Plex as an Organizr Tab

The first tab we’re going to add is Plex.

First, open Plex in a web browser to copy the URL. If Plex is installed locally (and not on a VM) you can either use 127.0.0.1:32400/web/index.html or your computers’ IP address and port number http://192.168.68.105:32400/

Go back to Organizr > Tab Editor > Click the + icon to add a new tab.

Add the info below. You can hit the Test tab button once all the info is added if you want. Once complete, click the Add Tab button.

• Tab Name: PLEX
• Tab URL: Paste Plex URL you just copied.
• Tab Local URL: leave blank
• PING URL: leave blank
• Tab Auto Action: none
• Tab Auto Action Minutes: 0
• Choose Image: Search for “Plex” to find the Plex logo.
• Choose Icon: Leave blank

Awesome! You have now added your first application Plex as a tab inside Organizr.

You’ll notice under the Type column that Plex shows up as an iframe. An iframe means that you can manage Plex inside Organizr which is exactly what we want.

I consider Plex to be the “backbone” of my entire media server setup, so I’m also going to set it as my default. To do that, just select the radial. Whenever you go to your IP address, this is the default page that opens.

Now, it’s time to test it out! Refresh your webpage and then click the PLEX tab you just created. You should now see your normal Plex dashboard inside Organizr!

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Add Sonarr to Organizr

Open Sonarr in a web browser to grab the URL, just like you did for Plex.

Go back to Organizr > Click Settings > Tab Editor > Add New.

• Tab Name: SONARR
• Tab URL: Paste Sonarr URL you just copied.
• Tab Local URL: leave blank
• PING URL: leave blank
• Tab Auto Action: none
• Tab Auto Action Minutes: 0
• Choose Image: Search for “Sonarr” to find the Plex logo.
• Choose Icon: Leave blank

Click Test Tab to see if Sonarr can be added as an iframe. Luckily, it can, which means you can manage Sonarr inside of Organizr as well!

Click Add Tab and refresh Organizr again. Boom! Sonarr is now visible inside Organizer as well.

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Add Radarr To Organizer

To add Radarr to Organizr, follow the exact same steps as you would to add Sonarr. The only changes you’ll need to make are pasting the Radarr URL locahost:7878 and searching for the Radarr image.

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Add NZBGet to Organizr

To add your usenet downloader NZBget, follow the same steps as you did for Plex, Sonarr, and Radarr. Change the URL and Logo just like before.

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Adding Websites to Organizr & Uploading Tab Images

Now that you’ve got the hang of adding your own media applications to Organizr, I wanted to show you what it looks like when you add websites that don’t use iframes and don’t have an image.

For this example, I’m adding Reddit.com as a tab. There won’t be any Reddit images in the default library, so you’ll need to upload your own image to Organizr before we begin.

First, go to Google, search for “reddit icon round png“, and find a transparent PNG image you want to use (make sure it’s a PNG!). All of your other images are round, so you’ll want a round one to keep everything symmetrical.

Right-click > Save Image As > and save it to the path below. Give it an easy to find name because you’re going to have to search for it later on: C:\nginx\www\organizr\html\plugins\images\tabs

Note: You don’t HAVE to save it to this folder – you can save the image anywhere and upload it. If you didn’t save to the folder above and instead saved to somewhere else (like Pictures or Desktop), go to Settings > Image Manager and upload the file. It’ll put it in that folder for you.

Add a new tab like normal. When you click Choose Image, search for the image Reddit.png.

As you can see by the red warning message, Reddit.com can’t be viewed inside the application. That’s OK, just click Add Tab for now.

On the Tab Editor screen, you’ll need to change it from iframe to New Window, otherwise you’ll see a blank page inside Organizr that looks like this:

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Reorganizing Tab Order

Now that you’ve added a few of your commonly used sites, you can organize the order in which they show up on the lefthand tab list. I recommend moving Settings and Homepage to the very bottom, and moving your most frequently accessed applications (Plex) to the very top.

To move the tab order, click Tab Editor and then click and drag to rearrange the order.

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Setting up your Organizr Homepage Dashboard

One of the last steps you’ll want to do is setup your “dashboard” page. Whenever you click the Homepage tab, this is where it’ll take you. For my homepage, I’m going to add Plex and my NZBGet downloads.

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Add NZBGet to Organizr Homepage

Go to Settings > Tab Editor > Homepage Items > NZBGet. You will need your NZBGet credentials.

• Enable tab: Turn on
• Connection: Enter NZBGET URL, NZBGet user, and NZBGet password.
• Misc Options: Leave alone
• Test Connection: Test your API connection. If it fails, check your credentials.

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Add Plex to Organizr Dashboard

Go to Settings > Tab Editor > Homepage Items > Plex. You will need your Plex Machine and Plex Token.

• To find your Plex machine name: Open Plex > Settings > General to find your Friendly Name (i.e Machine Name)
• To find your Plex token: Open Plex, browse to an episode > click the 3 dots > Get Info > View XML. Click View XML to view in a web browser. You’ll see a Plex-Token=XXXXXXXX in the URL. Copy that token.

Enable: Turn On
Connection: Enter your Plex URL, Machine Name, and Token you copied earlier.

Lastly, choose what items you want to view on your Homepage. Active Steams, Recent Items, Playlists, etc.

Click Save once complete. Once you click your Homepage tab, you should be able to see the status of your NZBGet downloads:

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Customizing Organizr Appearance (Colors and themes)

This is an optional step, but once you add everything you want to Organizr, you can customize the look and feel of it by going into Settings > Customize.

You can change how the Login page looks, the theme (either Organizr default or Blue), the style (light, dark, or horizontal), or add your own custom CSS. There’s even a theme marketplace where you can upload or download user created themes.

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Accessing Organizr Remotely From Your Phone

Like I said at the very beginning of this article, one of my favorite aspects of using Organizr is the ability to access all of my media server sites remotely from my phone, from one tab.

To access Organizr from your Android or Apple device, simply open a web browser and type your computers IP address:

Https://192.168.68.105

Going to that URL will take you to the Organizr login page. Once you log in, you’ll be able manage everything from that one tab.

Important Note: If you used localhost for the tab URL in Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, NZBget, etc – you will need to edit the tab to use your computer’s IP address instead (see below image). The webpages won’t load from another computer on your local network until you do this.

After changing from localhost to the IP, you should be able to access it from another computer or mobile device!

From here, click the 3 dots in your browser and then click Add to Home Screen. This will create a shortcut where you can quickly access Organizr from your phone.

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Wrapping Up

All in all, Organizr has been a gamechanger for me. I’m been in the home automation/homelab space for many years, and this is by far one of my “can’t live without” tools in my arsenal now.

The setup procedure was super quick, I was up and running on Windows 10 in less than 15 minutes with no coding or manually editing config files at all.

Hopefully this detailed setup guide helps you “Forget Bookmarks Now!”

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My Homelab Equipment

Here is some of the gear I use in my Homelab. I highly recommend each of them.

• Server 2019 w/ Hyper-V
• Case: Fractal Design Node 804
• Graphics Card: NVIDEA Quadro K600
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700

The full list of server components I use can be found on my Equipment List page.