Crafted with care

A peek under the hood at the technology and thoughtful engineering behind RandomPlayer.

Tech Stack

Language
Swift
Apple's modern programming language
Interface
SwiftUI
Native UI on every platform
Playback
AVFoundation
Hardware-accelerated video
Sync
iCloud
Watch history across devices
Sync
CloudKit
CKSyncEngine pushes changes as they happen
Protocols
SMB, NFS & WebDAV
Connect to any network share
Transport
SMB over QUIC
TLS 1.3 over UDP 443, no VPN
WebDAV
WebDAVKit
Zero-dependency HTTPS client
Storage
GRDB
SQLite for playlist persistence
Streaming
SwiftNIO
HTTP proxy for video playback

Engineering Highlights

100% Native, Every Device

Built entirely in Swift for each Apple platform. No web views, no cross-platform shortcuts. Every screen gets the experience it deserves.

Smart Caching

Only downloads the parts you actually watch. Seek to the middle of a big file? Only that portion gets cached. The playback timeline shows you exactly what's downloaded.

Encrypted Storage

Every cached file is encrypted on your device, with keys synced through iCloud Keychain. Your content stays private, even if someone gets physical access to your storage.

MKV & WebM, Natively

No conversion, no waiting. MKV and WebM files play directly, and VideoToolbox extracts real thumbnail previews so your library looks great.

Background Downloads

Downloads keep going even when you switch apps. The system schedules them intelligently around battery and Wi-Fi, and partial progress is always preserved.

Browse That Scales

The Netflix-style Browse view builds smart rows from your watch history, favorites, and folders -- no extra server calls. Handles massive libraries without breaking a sweat.

Fast Streaming

Pipelined reads and connection caching deliver noticeably faster SMB and NFS throughput, and the SMB transport is built on Network.framework -- the same transport that carries SMB over QUIC when your server offers it. Seeking through big files on a network share feels snappy.

Credentials Just Sync

Server credentials travel with you through iCloud Keychain, and share profiles sync through CloudKit. Change a password on one device and the others adopt it before their next connection attempt -- no relaunch, no retyping.

A Library You Can Carry

New

Videos copied to a drive live in a portable encrypted vault. One append-only sealed journal is the source of truth for what's on the drive, every file is encrypted with a fresh nonce, and the private key that unlocks it lives on each device and never leaves it. Nothing on the drive is readable outside the app.

4
Platforms
Swift
100% Native
3
Network Protocols

RandomPlayer is a labor of love. Have questions about how something works? Feel free to reach out.