NZBGet

High-performance Usenet downloader with web interface

NZBGet is a binary downloader that retrieves files from Usenet based on NZB files. Written in C++, NZBGet is renowned for its extraordinary performance and efficiency—using minimal CPU and memory while maximizing download speeds. On QuickBox, NZBGet runs as a per-user daemon with its binary at /opt/username/NZBGet/nzbget and a web interface published through the nginx reverse proxy.

Installation

Have your Usenet provider (news server) and indexer credentials ready — you enter them in the NZBGet web interface after installation.

Install from the Dashboard

Open App Dashboard → Package Management (/dashboard?mode=packages), find NZBGet in the catalog (browse Download Clients or search), and click Install. The dashboard streams the install log live and NZBGet appears in your Application Control panel when it finishes. Reinstall and Remove are in the same Package Management panel. To update, use the amber Update badge on the NZBGet row in the App Dashboard.

What you see and can manage is gated by your account: admins manage any user’s apps; regular users manage their own. For the full package flow see App Management.

Install from the CLI (automation)

The CLI runs the same install and is suited to automation and scripting:

qb install nzbget -u username

Directory Layout

Network & Access

NZBGet binds to localhost on auto-assigned Control/Secure ports (defaults start at 6789/6791 if free). QuickBox publishes the UI through nginx at:

Auth: nginx uses Basic Auth with /etc/htpasswd.d/htpasswd.username (your QuickBox credentials). Upstream NZBGet control credentials are set to the same username/password and bound to 127.0.0.1.

Services

NZBGet uses a templated systemd unit (nzbget@.service) running as a forking daemon:

# Check status
systemctl status nzbget@username
 
# View logs
journalctl -u nzbget@username -f
 
# Restart service
systemctl restart nzbget@username
 
# Reload configuration
systemctl reload nzbget@username

The service starts NZBGet as a forking daemon and restarts it automatically on failure.

FileBot Post-Processing (courtesy setup)

QuickBox can wire NZBGet to FileBot during FileBot installation:

1. Install FileBot with the NZBGet option:
   bash

   qb install filebot -u username -o nzbget -mp /path/to/media

2. QuickBox drops ~/.config/NZBGet/scripts/nzbget-postprocess.sh and rewrites it with your username and media path.
3. In NZBGet → Settings → Extension Scripts, add nzbget-postprocess.sh and enable it for relevant categories.

Integrations

Configuration

You can connect *arr apps directly to NZBGet by providing the following details in their download client settings:

Browser Download Index

NZBGet gets the same per-user browser file index as the torrent clients. It lists your NZBGet completed-download folder in a dark-themed fancyindex view, which is useful for grabbing a single finished file without loading the NZBGet web interface. The Download Activity panel in the dashboard links to it as Open download folder.

• The listing is the folder set as DestDir in NZBGet (the destination folder in nzbget.conf), not a fixed location. Change it in NZBGet and QuickBox re-renders the index on its own, usually within seconds, with an hourly check as a safety net. If the folder can’t be served (it is a symlink, it is outside your home folder, /mnt and /media, it doesn’t exist, or the web server can’t read it), the index keeps serving the default folder and the dashboard shows a note beginning “Showing the default folder.” See Open download folder for each note.
• Removing NZBGet keeps your finished downloads. qb remove nzbget deletes the client’s configuration and install files but never the completed-download folder or what is inside it, so the default folder and the path leading to it stay while the rest of ~/.config/NZBGet is deleted, and the remove output names the folder it kept. Reinstalling keeps the folder you had by writing DestDir back into the fresh configuration.
• If the page fails to load while the rest of the dashboard works, see Downloads / browse index page not loading.

Troubleshooting

Downloads / browse index page not loading

QuickBox builds a per-user nginx fancyindex view of each user’s completed downloads, and NZBGet’s completed folder is included in it. This browse index is a single shared per-user config — /etc/nginx/software/username.dlindex.conf — that covers every download client that user has installed, not NZBGet alone. It has no service of its own.

The same fix applies to the browse page for every download client — see the Download Clients overview.

Best Practices

Additional Resources