Our free desktop player

ParentFilter's filtering also runs inside mpv, the free desktop video player — the same skip, mute, and blur, from the same filter files, on any movie file you own. It steers live playback only; no altered copy of any media is ever written, and every filtered playback opens with the notice that the performance is altered.

Guides can miss a moment or catch it late — preview a film if it matters. A filter file someone gives you is theirs: we didn’t make it and can’t check it. What can go wrong

1 · Install the script

Download parentfilter.lua and its installer from the ParentFilter repository, then run:

./install.sh

This copies the script into ~/.config/mpv/scripts/ and seeds a "Young kids" profile you can edit at ~/.config/mpv/parentfilter/profile.json. Re-running is safe.

2 · Get a filter for your film

Guides live in your ParentFilter account now: the analyzer keeps every finished guide on the platform and loads it itself whenever the film is opened there — the analyzer page is also the player, so most families never need this script at all. mpv remains for guide files you already have from before.

3 · Play it filtered

mpv movie.mp4 --script-opts=parentfilter-track="movie.pf.json"

mpv movie.mp4 --script-opts=parentfilter-guide=yes,parentfilter-lead=10

The script itself never touches the network — every guide it plays is a file you handed it. Stremio can use mpv as its external player, which makes this work there too.