Important
Lightious Invidious fork — under development. This repository is a modified fork of iv-org/invidious for the Lightious companion control plane and Light Phone III client. Work on the fork began on 2026-08-30. No Lightious server features are release-ready yet. The fork and its modifications remain licensed under the GNU AGPL-3.0; the complete upstream project information follows below.
When the Lightious feature flag is enabled, signed-in Invidious users get a
separate, non-playing companion. /lightious configures the phone experience
and paired phones; /lightious/library is the canonical place to search for
videos and channels, add one result or a checkbox selection, manage focused
library policy, and reach private Lightious playlists. Search results never
link to the Invidious player. The old /lightious/search URL redirects to the
library while preserving its query string.
Light Phone III clients pair with a 12-character XXXX-XXXX-XXXX code. The
sync API keeps explicit videos, whole-channel permissions, and Lightious-owned
playlists separate so a playlist cannot grant playback beyond its selected
videos. Whole-channel pages combine only uploads and livestreams; they never
request a Shorts source. Shorts are never offered as Lightious content: the
companion, library, playlists, channel views, and device APIs filter them, and
direct attempts to add or play a known Short are denied. These additions remain
under development and are intended for the experimental sideloaded Lightious
client.
| Player | Preferences | Subscriptions |
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User features
- Lightweight
- No ads
- No tracking
- No JavaScript required
- Light/Dark themes
- Customizable homepage
- Subscriptions independent from Google
- Notifications for all subscribed channels
- Audio-only mode (with background play on mobile)
- Support for Reddit comments
- Available in many languages, thanks to our translators
Data import/export
- Import subscriptions from YouTube, NewPipe and FreeTube
- Import watch history from YouTube and NewPipe
- Export subscriptions to NewPipe and FreeTube
- Import/Export Invidious user data
Technical features
- Embedded video support
- Developer API
- Does not use official YouTube APIs
- No Contributor License Agreement (CLA)
Using Invidious:
- Select a public instance from the list and start watching videos right now!
Hosting Invidious:
The full documentation can be accessed online at https://docs.invidious.io/
The documentation's source code is available in this repository: https://github.com/iv-org/documentation
We highly recommend the use of Privacy Redirect, a browser extension that automatically redirects YouTube URLs to any Invidious instance and replaces embedded YouTube videos on other websites with Invidious.
The documentation contains a list of browser extensions that we recommended to use along with Invidious.
You can read more here: https://docs.invidious.io/applications/
- Fork it ( https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/fork ).
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature). - Stage your files (
git add .). - Commit your changes (
git commit -m 'Add some feature'). - Push to the branch (
git push origin my-new-feature). - Create a new pull request ( https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/compare ).
We use Weblate to manage Invidious translations.
You can suggest new translations and/or correction here: https://hosted.weblate.org/engage/invidious/.
Creating an account is not required, but recommended, especially if you want to contribute regularly. Weblate also allows you to log-in with major SSO providers like GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, Google, ...
A list of projects and extensions for or utilizing Invidious can be found in the documentation: https://docs.invidious.io/applications/
We take no responsibility for the use of our tool, or external instances provided by third parties. We strongly recommend you abide by the valid official regulations in your country. Furthermore, we refuse liability for any inappropriate use of Invidious, such as illegal downloading. This tool is provided to you in the spirit of free, open software.
You may view the LICENSE in which this software is provided to you here.
- Limitation of Liability.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.