Lumen Get early access

What's new

Lumen is in beta. Each build below adds to the one before it.

23 October 2026

Beta build
  • Download to This Mac for cloud films and episodes, a whole season at a time, with the next episode downloading while you watch. The download says how far it's got, how fast and how long is left, or why it stopped, with Try Again.
  • Lumen asks a cloud drive for far less: it no longer reads every video in the background, only the one you open or play. If Google Drive pauses an account's downloads, Lumen stops asking, says until when, and checks again with one small request.
  • Cloud videos show their picture and sound (4K, Dolby Vision, HDR, Atmos, 5.1) from their names until they're read, and the drive's own frame as the film page's backdrop.
  • Film pages say before you press Play whether a cloud film will stream without stopping on your connection.
  • TV shows: one season at a time, episode summaries, and summaries and frames hidden for episodes you haven't reached.
  • Next Episode when an episode's end credits start, counting down, with Watch Credits to stay; it finds the next episode in the next season, and on a cloud drive, too.
  • Letterboxd: film pages link to the film there; your public diary (or Letterboxd's export of it) marks what you've watched and brings your ratings; what you watch in Lumen saves as a file Letterboxd's import takes; and a film you finish offers its Letterboxd page, to log it.
  • A Languages section in the sidebar, Year in Sort By, and genre pages that follow your sort.

22 October 2026

Beta build
  • Home: shelves for Continue Watching, Favourites, Picks of the Day, Recently Added, genres, unwatched and top-rated films, TV shows and your own collections, in the order you choose.
  • Cloud drives: Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive, streamed straight from the drive (in testing).
  • Apple's own symbols for every icon, and a calmer hover on posters.
  • A more compact control panel in the player, and holding a key keeps going: volume, brightness, seeking and subtitle timing.
  • Short films the metadata sources know as films go to Films, not Clips.
  • New in Settings ▸ Playback: the volume and brightness controls can change the Mac's volume and the display's brightness, so the film plays at its own level and as it was made.
  • Edit Metadata searches for the film: pick the right one from a list with posters, years and directors, and it stays pinned, even when another film has the same name.
  • Film pages show what's been playing, films like this one in your library, and the file's name, size, picture and sound at the foot.
  • Posters show their picture and sound as small labels under the title instead of a coloured strip.
  • Cast pages open at once, and the picture cache stays small, with a size you can set in Settings ▸ Metadata.
  • Trailers play in Lumen, in YouTube's privacy-enhanced player, when you press Trailer on a film's page. Lumen only plays a video it's sure is that film's trailer, and nothing goes to YouTube until you press.
  • Add to Library for cloud drives: a folder on Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive joins your films and shows, with posters, details and Continue Watching, as a folder on your Mac does. Lumen only reads the drive.
  • Posters show a check once watched and a New label until first played. Ratings sit under each film's details.
  • Move to Trash takes a film's own subtitles and artwork along. An empty folder has Show in Finder and Remove.
  • Sign In with Plex waits while you allow Lumen on Plex's page, can open the page again, and keeps Lumen to one device on your Plex account. Signing in to Trakt, Simkl and cloud drives copes with a dropped connection and says what's wrong with a key.

21 October 2026

Beta build
  • Films are videos of 40 minutes or more; shorter ones go to a new Clips row. Anime-style episode numbers are understood.
  • Blu-ray and DVD folders play their main feature, and the player lists the disc's other titles.
  • Places and watched marks sync between your Macs through iCloud Drive (off until you turn it on).
  • Trakt and Simkl: what you watch is added to your history, and what you've watched there is marked here.
  • Emby and Plex join Jellyfin as media servers.
  • Profiles: each person's own watched list, age limits and a PIN.
  • Your iPhone as a remote, Matroska editions, 3D and 360° video.
  • Network shares: SMB, NFS and WebDAV folders in the library.
  • Quick Look previews for MKV and other files in Finder, Shortcuts actions and lumen:// links.
  • Extras and trailers on film pages; picture filters; Open URL for web videos and live streams; sharper upscaling for small videos.
  • Dual subtitles, subtitle styling, Skip Intro, Recap and Credits, a play queue with playlists, frame step, A-B loop and screenshots.
  • Night mode and equaliser presets, and matching the display's refresh rate to the film.
  • A new look throughout, with a new app icon.
  • Lumen now carries its own decoders, so every common container and codec plays.

20 October 2026

First beta build
  • HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision playback, at full brightness on HDR screens and converted for screens without HDR.
  • Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD, with object-based sound and virtual surround on headphones; 5.1 and 7.1 on speakers.
  • Subtitles, chapters, playback speed, audio and subtitle delay, resume, Picture in Picture and media keys.
  • A library with films and TV shows, posters, plots and cast found without an account, and actor pages.
  • Subtitle search through OpenSubtitles, and previews above the scrubber.

Dolby, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation. HDR10+ is a trademark of HDR10+ Technologies, LLC.