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The documentation here is for an unreleased version of Recyclarr.

Visit the documentation site for the Current Version instead.

Environment Variables

These environment variables control the behavior of the Recyclarr CLI and server.

Looking for config substitution?

To substitute environment variable values into your YAML configuration files, see Value Substitution.

RECYCLARR_CONFIG_DIR​

Overrides the default configuration directory location. This directory holds user configuration and state that should be backed up. See File Structure for platform defaults and directory contents.

export RECYCLARR_CONFIG_DIR="/custom/path/to/config"

RECYCLARR_DATA_DIR​

Overrides the location for ephemeral data directory used for regenerable files like downloaded resources and logs.

export RECYCLARR_DATA_DIR="/custom/path/to/data"

If unset, defaults to the same path as RECYCLARR_CONFIG_DIR. When both variables are set, only the config directory needs to be backed up.

Relative paths are resolved from the config directory.

RECYCLARR_SERVER_URL​

The address of a running Recyclarr server for CLI commands to use. When set to a non-empty value, it overrides server.base_url in cli.yml.

export RECYCLARR_SERVER_URL="http://localhost:7982"

The Docker image sets this variable so that docker exec commands use the container's server.

RECYCLARR_API_KEY​

The server API key. Both programs read it:

  • The server requires it and does not start when it is unset or empty. A temporary server gets a one-time key from the CLI instead, so you only set this for a persistent server.
  • The CLI sends it to the server at server.base_url. When set to a non-empty value, it overrides server.api_key in cli.yml.
export RECYCLARR_API_KEY="$(openssl rand -hex 32)"

The Docker image has no default for this variable. Set it on the container; the server and docker exec commands both use it.

OTEL_*​

The standard OpenTelemetry variables. Setting OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT makes the server export traces, metrics, and logs to an OpenTelemetry Collector or another OTLP receiver. See OpenTelemetry for the variables Recyclarr uses.

export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:4317"

NO_COLOR​

Disables ANSI color output when set to any non-empty value.

export NO_COLOR=1

Useful for scripting, piping output to files, or terminals that don't support colors.

See no-color.org for more information about this standard convention.