Integrations

Integrations

QBZ connects with several external services to enhance your listening experience. Configure all integrations in Settings > Integrations.

Last.fm

Scrobble your listening history to Last.fm.

Setup

1. Go to Settings > Integrations > Last.fm
2. Click Connect and authorize QBZ in the browser window that opens
3. Scrobbling starts automatically

Features

• Automatic scrobbling — tracks are scrobbled after 50% of playback or 4 minutes (whichever comes first)
• Now Playing updates — your Last.fm profile shows what you're currently listening to
• Offline scrobble queue — listens during offline periods are saved and submitted in batches when connectivity is restored (up to 50 per flush)

ListenBrainz

Submit your listening data to the open-source ListenBrainz project.

Setup

1. Go to Settings > Integrations > ListenBrainz
2. Enter your ListenBrainz user token (find it on your ListenBrainz profile)
3. Submissions start automatically

Features

• Automatic listen submissions
• Offline queue — submissions are stored and sent when connectivity is restored

Plex

QBZ can connect to your local Plex Media Server and play your Plex music library directly, merged into the Local Library alongside your local files.

How It Works

• LAN-only — QBZ connects to Plex servers on your local network (not remote/cloud)
• Direct play — audio files are played directly from Plex, no transcoding. Your FLAC stays FLAC
• Unified library — Plex albums appear alongside your local files in the Local Library view, with a Plex badge to distinguish them
• Same audio pipeline — Plex tracks play through the same bit-perfect audio backend as everything else

Setup

1. Go to Settings > Integrations > Plex Connection
2. Enter your Plex server URL (e.g., http://192.168.1.100:32400)
   • Only local/LAN addresses are accepted
3. Authenticate using one of two methods:
   • Easy Connection: Click "Generate Code", visit plex.tv/link, enter the code — QBZ links automatically
   • Manual Token: Paste your Plex X-Token directly
4. Click Check Plex connection to verify
5. Click Get Plex music libraries to see your music sections
6. Select which sections to sync
7. Click Sync Plex library to import your music metadata

Using Plex in the Local Library

After syncing:

• Go to Local Library from the sidebar
• Plex albums appear with a Plex logo badge on the album card
• Plex tracks show a Plex indicator icon in track rows
• You can mix local files and Plex tracks in the same queue
• Search works across both local and Plex tracks

Quality and Metadata

• QBZ reads quality metadata (sample rate, bit depth, format) from your Plex server
• For tracks where Plex doesn't report full quality info, QBZ hydrates the metadata in the background by fetching individual track details
• All metadata is cached locally in plex_cache.db — browsing your Plex library is fast even if the server is temporarily unreachable

Limitations

• LAN only — remote Plex servers (outside your local network) are not supported
• No transcoding — QBZ plays files as-is. If your audio backend doesn't support a format, it won't play
• Read-only — QBZ doesn't modify your Plex library metadata (an experimental write option exists but is disabled by default)
• No Plex playlists — only music library content is synced, not Plex playlists

Disconnecting

To disconnect Plex, go to Settings > Integrations > Plex Connection and click Disconnect Plex. You can also Clear Plex cache to remove all cached Plex metadata from QBZ.

MusicBrainz

QBZ uses MusicBrainz as a semantic enrichment layer that adds depth to the Qobuz catalog. MusicBrainz data powers three major features: musician pages, scene discovery, and playlist suggestions.

No setup required — MusicBrainz data is fetched automatically and cached locally.

Privacy note: QBZ has no telemetry. MusicBrainz is a one-way pull — QBZ fetches public data from MusicBrainz but never sends any user data, listening history, or usage information back.

Musician Pages

When you view album credits in QBZ, you can see the musicians who performed on the album (instrumentalists, producers, engineers, etc.). Clicking on a musician's name opens their Musician Page — a custom view showing:

• Every album they appear on in the Qobuz catalog, regardless of their role
• Their role on each album (e.g., violin, producer, mixing engineer)
• Bands and projects they're part of (from MusicBrainz relationships)

This is especially useful for session musicians, producers, and performers who don't have their own artist page on Qobuz. A violinist who appears on 30 different albums across multiple artists gets a unified page showing all their work.

How it works: QBZ resolves the musician's name against MusicBrainz, then searches the Qobuz catalog for all their appearances. Results are filtered by confidence level to avoid false matches.

Scene Discovery (Artists by Location)

Scene Discovery lets you explore artists from the same city or region as an artist you like, filtered by genre affinity. It answers the question: "Who else is making music like this, from the same place?"

How to Use It

1. Open any artist's page in QBZ
2. Look for the origin/location info (e.g., "London, England")
3. Click the location or the Scene Discovery button
4. QBZ opens the Artists by Location view

What You See

• Hero section with country flag, scene label (e.g., "London scene"), and genre summary
• Artist grid showing all discovered artists with their Qobuz artwork
• Genre filters — multi-select to narrow down by specific genres
• Search — filter results by name
• Alphabetical grouping — optional A-Z navigation
• Grid or sidepanel layout — sidepanel shows the selected artist's albums on the right

How It Works Behind the Scenes

1. QBZ fetches the source artist's metadata from MusicBrainz: their location (city-level when available) and genre tags
2. Genre tags are normalized — broad tags like "rock" or "pop" are filtered out to keep results specific
3. QBZ searches MusicBrainz for artists in the same area with overlapping genre tags
4. Each candidate is scored based on:
   • Location proximity — same city scores highest, same country scores lower
   • Genre overlap — more shared genres = higher score
   • Multi-genre bonus — artists matching across multiple genre queries rank higher
5. Top candidates are validated against the Qobuz catalog to ensure they're actually available to stream
6. Results are cached for 30 days to avoid repeated lookups

Example

You're listening to Radiohead (Oxford, England). Scene Discovery searches for artists from England with overlapping tags like "art rock", "experimental", "alternative". You might discover artists you've never heard of who share both the geography and the sound.

Playlist Suggestions

When building or viewing a playlist, QBZ can suggest tracks from similar artists. MusicBrainz data powers these suggestions through a vector-based similarity engine:

1. QBZ analyzes the artists in your playlist
2. For each artist, it builds a profile from MusicBrainz relationships and genre tags
3. It finds artists that are similar to your playlist's overall sound (but not already in the playlist)
4. It fetches top tracks from those similar artists and ranks them by relevance

Suggestions appear in the playlist view and in the immersive player's Suggestions panel.

Artist Enrichment

On artist detail pages, MusicBrainz adds:

• Origin location — where the artist is from (city and country)
• Band members — current and past members with time periods
• Side projects — other bands/projects the artist is involved in
• Collaborators — artists with direct collaboration relationships
• "You May Also Like" — tag-based discovery of similar artists

Each name is clickable and leads to that artist's page.

Caching

All MusicBrainz data is cached locally:

• Artist metadata: cached indefinitely (location and tags rarely change)
• Scene discovery results: cached for 30 days
• Playlist suggestion vectors: cached for 7 days

MusicBrainz has a rate limit of 1 request per second, which QBZ respects automatically.

Discogs

Fetch alternative album artwork from Discogs.

• Additional cover art variants for different regional releases
• No setup required — fetched automatically when available

MPRIS

QBZ integrates with the Linux desktop via MPRIS (Media Player Remote Interface Specification):

• Media keys — play, pause, next, previous via keyboard media keys
• Desktop notifications — track change notifications with album artwork
• Desktop integration — appears in your DE's media controls (GNOME, KDE, etc.)
• Lock screen — shows current track on your lock screen

MPRIS is enabled automatically — no setup needed.

Playlist Import

Import playlists from other streaming services using fuzzy track matching:

Supported Sources

• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Tidal
• Deezer

How It Works

1. Go to Playlists and click Import
2. Paste the playlist URL from the source service
3. QBZ searches Qobuz for matching tracks using fuzzy matching
4. Review the matches and confirm the import

Fuzzy matching handles differences in track titles, artist names, and album names between services. You can review and adjust matches before importing.