10 Bazarr Tips to Perfect Your Sonarr and Radarr Subtitle Automation

You've got Sonarr and Radarr humming along. New episodes and movies appear in Plex before you even know they're out. But then it happens—you sit down to watch a new release, and the subtitles are missing, out of sync, or in the wrong language. You spend the next 20 minutes fiddling with .srt files instead of watching your show.

Bazarr fixes this. It's the companion app that grabs subtitles automatically based on what Sonarr and Radarr have downloaded. But out of the box, Bazarr's default settings are, well, basic. With a few tweaks, you can turn it into a subtitle machine that gets it right almost every time.

Here are 10 Bazarr tips to take your subtitle automation from "good enough" to flawless.

---

1. Pick the Right Subtitle Providers (And Not Too Many)

More providers doesn't always mean better subtitles. Each provider has strengths:

The key is quality over quantity. I recommend enabling 3–5 providers that match what you watch. If you mostly watch American TV shows, OpenSubtitles.com + Addic7ed + Podnapisi covers nearly everything.

Pro tip: In Bazarr, go to Settings → Providers and disable any provider you don't use. Each active provider adds lookup time. Fewer providers = faster subtitle searches.

---

2. Create a Language Profile That Matches Your Viewing Habits

Bazarr's default language profile is just "English"—but that's not specific enough. If you're bilingual or watch foreign films, you need a proper language profile.

Setting Up a Language Profile

Go to Settings → Languages and create a profile. For example:

• Profile name: "English + Spanish"
• Languages: English (primary), Spanish (secondary)
• Forced subtitles: Enabled for both
• HI (Hearing Impaired): Off (unless you need them)

Then apply this profile in Settings → Sonarr/Radarr under the "Default Settings" section.

Cutoff vs. Preferred

Bazarr has two concepts you need to understand:

• Preferred: Subtitles you'd like to have (e.g., English and Spanish)
• Cutoff: The point where Bazarr stops searching. If you set cutoff to English, Bazarr stops looking for Spanish once English is found.

For most users, set cutoff to your primary language and preferred to all languages you'd accept. This way Bazarr grabs English immediately but still fetches Spanish if it's available without slowing things down.

---

3. Fine-Tune Score Thresholds to Avoid Bad Subtitles

Bazarr scores every subtitle it finds based on several factors: release group match, FPS match, hearing-impaired status, and more. The default minimum score is often too low, letting through poorly synced subs.

What to Change

Go to Settings → Subtitles and adjust:

minimum_score: 75        # Default is often 50-60, too low
score_hi: false          # Skip hearing-impaired subtitles
score_movie: 80          # Higher threshold for movies
score_series: 70         # Slightly lower for TV episodes

A score of 75+ means Bazarr only accepts subtitles that are well-matched to your specific release. Yes, you'll occasionally end up with no subtitles, but that's better than watching with desynced text.

Tip: If you notice a specific show consistently getting bad subs, you can override the global score per series in Series → Edit → Subtitles.

---

4. Use the Right Sync Method for Your Setup

Bazarr offers two subtitle sync modes:

• Video file only: Syncs against the actual video file (accurate but requires access to the file)
• Series/movie metadata: Syncs based on filename and release info (faster but less precise)

On a seedbox like SonicBit, Bazarr runs in the same environment as your media files, so always choose "video file only" for maximum accuracy. This lets Bazarr analyze the actual video to match frame rates and timing perfectly.

If you're running Bazarr on a separate machine from your media storage, metadata sync is your only option—but expect slightly more sync issues.

---

5. Enable Automatic Subtitles for Existing Library Items

When you first install Bazarr, it only looks at newly added content. Your existing library? No subtitles. That's a common "gotcha."

How to Fix It

1. Go to Settings → Sonarr (or Radarr)
2. Scroll to "Sync" section
3. Enable "Download subtitles for existing series/movies"
4. Set the lookback period (e.g., 30 days or "All")

Then trigger a manual sync. Bazarr will scan your entire library and start fetching subtitles for everything that's missing them.

Heads up: If you have a large library, this can take a while and hit rate limits on subtitle providers. Do it in batches by series or movie genre if you have thousands of titles.

---

6. Exclude Tags to Skip Subtitles for Certain Content

Not everything needs subtitles. Maybe you speak fluent Japanese and don't want subs for anime. Or you have a folder of home videos that Sonarr picked up accidentally.

Using Exclusion Tags

In Sonarr/Radarr, add a tag like no-subs to the series or movie you want to skip.

Then in Bazarr, go to Settings → Sonarr/Radarr → Advanced Settings and add no-subs to the "Excluded Tags" field.

Bazarr will completely ignore anything with that tag. No subtitles fetched, no error messages, no wasted API calls.

---

7. Set Up Notifications to Catch Failures Early

Bazarr silently fails sometimes. A provider goes down, an API key expires, or a subtitle is just never found. If you don't check Bazarr regularly, you won't know until you're watching a show and the subs are missing.

Notification Options

Bazarr supports integrations with:

• Discord – Get a message when subtitles are downloaded or fail
• Telegram – Similar to Discord, great for mobile alerts
• Slack – If you use Slack for home automation
• Webhooks – Connect to n8n, Home Assistant, or custom scripts

My recommendation: set up Discord notifications with separate channels for successes and failures. Then you'll know within minutes if something goes wrong.

notifications:
  discord:
    webhook_url: "https://discord.com/api/webhooks/your-webhook"
    on_success: true
    on_failure: true
    failure_threshold: 3

---

8. Understand the Difference Between "Wanted" and "Missing"

Bazarr has two important statuses that confuse new users:

• Wanted: Bazarr hasn't found subtitles matching your criteria yet, but it's still looking
• Missing: Bazarr has given up—no subtitles found after exhausting all providers

If you see a lot of "Missing" items, don't panic. Sometimes it's a new episode that hasn't been uploaded to providers yet. But if a show has been out for weeks and still shows "Missing," something is wrong.

Troubleshooting "Missing" Items

1. Manually trigger a search for that specific episode
2. Check if the subtitle exists on the provider's website directly
3. Verify your provider API keys are still valid
4. Check if your minimum score is too high for that release

Quick fix: Temporarily lower the minimum score for that specific series, trigger a search, then restore the score.

---

9. Leverage Embedded Subtitles (Don't Ignore Them)

Many releases—especially Blu-ray rips and WEB-DL—already have subtitles embedded in the video file. Bazarr can extract these, but only if you enable it.

Go to Settings → Subtitles → Embedded Subtitles and enable:

• Extract embedded subtitles ✓
• Use embedded subtitles as fallback ✓

This gives you perfectly synced subtitles with zero provider lookups. It's especially useful for:

• Foreign films that come with native language subs
• Anime releases with multiple subtitle tracks
• 4K remuxes that include PGS subtitles

Bazarr will prefer provider subtitles (which are usually more customizable) but fall back to embedded ones when needed.

---

10. Schedule Bazarr Searches to Avoid API Rate Limits

Subtitle providers enforce rate limits. If Bazarr hits a provider too frequently, you'll get temporarily banned and everything stops working.

Optimize Your Search Schedule

Go to Settings → Scheduler and configure:

If you have a large library or aggressive automation, increase the interval to avoid hitting rate limits. Slower and steady beats fast and blocked.

Pro tip: Stagger your searches. Don't sync Sonarr and Radarr at the same time if you have hundreds of items. Run them 30 minutes apart.

---

Wrapping Up

Bazarr is the glue that makes Sonarr and Radarr setups feel truly complete. With these 10 tweaks, you'll spend less time hunting for subtitles and more time watching your media.

The best part? You don't need to touch a single Docker command or YAML file to set this up on SonicBit. Bazarr is available as a one-click deploy alongside Sonarr, Radarr, and Plex—all managed from the same dashboard.

Once your stack is running, Bazarr handles the rest. New episode drops → Sonarr grabs it → Bazarr fetches subtitles → Plex streams it with perfect subs. It just works.

Sign up free at SonicBit.net and get 4GB storage. Download our app on Android and iOS to access your seedbox on the go.