MediaHarbor
Overview
Your photos and videos live on a NAS, an external drive, or right on your iPhone. MediaHarbor makes them feel like they’re in the Photos app — without uploading a single file to anyone’s cloud.
Save SMB connections to Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS, Unraid, or any Windows share and browse them directly. No mounting in the Files app first, no accounts, no sync service in the middle. Photos render in a fast thumbnail grid; video plays through a two-engine player that handles the MKV and AVI files iOS normally refuses to open.
Status: Active development — submitted for App Store review. Check back shortly for the download link.
Screenshots
Key Features
Network Shares (SMB)
- Save connections to Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS, Unraid, Windows shares, or any SMB server
- Direct SMB implementation — no need to mount the share in the Files app first
- Host, port, username, domain, and default share are all configurable
- Passwords stored in the iOS Keychain, scoped to your device
- Favorite individual folders for one-tap access from the home screen
- Files download only when you open them, and the local cache cleans up after itself
Photo Browsing
- Adaptive thumbnail grid, 2–6 columns, with pinch-to-resize
- Sort by name, date, or size, with date-grouped section headers
- Search by file name, favorites, and multi-select for batch actions
- JPEG, HEIC, PNG, GIF, TIFF, WebP, and RAW (DNG, ARW, CR2, CR3, NEF, ORF, RW2, RAF and more)
- Live Photos play with a long press
- Pinch and double-tap zoom in the full-screen viewer
- Smart albums from on-device scene detection — no photo ever leaves the device to be analyzed
Video Playback
- Two engines, chosen automatically: the native iOS player for MP4 and MOV, and a built-in VLC engine for MKV, AVI, WMV, TS, and other containers
- Picture in Picture and AirPlay on the native player
- Stream video straight off the share, or download it for offline playback
- Resume where you left off, tracked per file
- Double-tap to skip, hold for 2× speed, drag for brightness and volume
- Play Next or Shuffle when a video ends
- Audio and subtitle track selection, plus
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Metadata
- Full EXIF, TIFF, GPS, and IPTC data
- Map view for photos with GPS coordinates
- File name, size, dimensions, and format badges
Privacy
- No accounts, no ads, no third-party SDKs, and no analytics of any kind
- Nothing is uploaded — the app talks to your server and nobody else’s
- SMB passwords live in the iOS Keychain, device-scoped
- The only data ever sent anywhere is a support message you explicitly write and send
Pricing
MediaHarbor is a free download. The free version includes one saved network connection and plays the first five minutes of each video — enough to confirm it works with your NAS and your files before spending anything.
A single Lifetime Unlock ($6.99, one time) removes both limits permanently. No subscription, and it’s Family Shareable.
Version History
v1.0 — July 2026
- Initial release: direct SMB browsing, photo grid with RAW and Live Photo support, two-engine video playback with streaming, resume positions, favorites, metadata with GPS maps, and on-device smart albums
Open Source Notice
MediaHarbor includes open-source software: VLCKit (© VideoLAN and authors), AMSMB2 (© Amir Abbas Mousavian), and libsmb2 (© Ronnie Sahlberg and contributors), each used under the GNU LGPL v2.1 as dynamically linked, unmodified libraries. Full license text is included in the app under Settings → About → Third-Party Software.
Privacy Policy
Support
Send feedback directly from inside the app — About → Send Feedback. No email account needed. You can also use the Contact page.