Roon plays your local music from Watched Folders: folders Roon monitors for tracks. How you add one depends on where your music lives. If it's on the same machine that runs Roon Server, you can browse to it or paste its path. If it's on a NAS or another device, or your server is a Nucleus, ROCK, or other appliance with no screen, you'll add it as a network share. This article covers both.

This article is about adding music (Watched Folders). If you're here to set up a backup destination for your Roon database, see Roon Backup Locations and How to Add Them instead.

Before You Begin

• Roon Server is running, and you can open Roon on a remote or on the server machine.
• You know where your music is stored: on the server machine itself, or on another device or NAS.
• For a NAS or network share, the folder is shared over SMB and you have any username and password it requires. New to Watched Folders? See What's a watched folder?

Which Method Do You Need?

Your music is on the same machine that runs Roon Server (a Mac or Windows PC, or a drive hardwired to it): use the local folder method below.

Your music is on a NAS, another computer, or a drive attached to an appliance server: skip to Adding Music From a NAS or Network Share. 

Adding a Local Folder (Mac or Windows Server)

In Roon, go to Settings, then Storage, then click + Add Folder, then New Folder. This opens a dialog where you can enter or paste the path to your music. If you're not sure of the path, find it using the steps for your operating system below.

macOS

1. On the Mac running Roon Server, open Finder and go to the folder where your music is stored.
2. Right-click the folder and choose Get Info.

3. In the Get Info window, find the Where field, highlight the path, and press Command-C to copy it.

4. In Roon's New Folder dialog, press Command-V to paste the path.

5. Confirm to add the folder. Roon shows the subdirectories inside it. To add everything, add no subdirectory and choose Select this folder.

If the folder won't add, try a shorter path and select the rest in Roon. Instead of pasting the full path to /Music, paste /Users/[your username] and pick the Music folder from there.

Windows

1. On the Windows PC running Roon Server, open File Explorer and go to your music folder.

2. Click the empty space at the right of the address bar. Explorer turns it into a selectable text path. Copy it.

3. In Roon's New Folder dialog, paste the path and confirm. As on macOS, if the folder won't add, try a shorter path and select the rest in Roon.

Adding Music From a NAS or Network Share

If your music is on a NAS, on another computer, or attached to an appliance server, add it as a network share. In Roon, go to Settings, then Storage, then + Add Folder, then + Add Network Share, and enter the network path.

We recommend using the NAS hostname, such as \\DISKSTATION or smb://MyNASDrive. You can find it by logging in to your NAS. You can use the NAS IP address instead, but an IP can change as your network reassigns addresses, which breaks the path later.

To keep an IP-based path from breaking, give your NAS a fixed address with a DHCP reservation in your router, or use the hostname instead of the IP.

AFP shares are not supported. You must connect using SMB or the hostname. If your NAS offers only AFP or Time Machine sharing for a folder, enable SMB for it first.

If Roon Server runs on Windows, the path looks like:

\\MyNASDrive\Multimedia\Music
\\192.168.1.120\Multimedia\Music

If Roon Server runs on macOS or Linux (including Nucleus and ROCK), the path looks like:

smb://MyNASDrive/Multimedia/Music
smb://192.168.1.120/Multimedia/Music

After you enter the path, enter the username and password your NAS requires. If the share needs no credentials, leave those fields blank and confirm.

If You See "Unauthorized" or "Unexpected Error"

These two messages are the most common network-share problems, and they usually come from the share configuration rather than from Roon. Check the following:

1. The folder is shared over SMB, and SMB is enabled on the device.
2. The username and password are correct, and contain no special characters.
3. On a Mac acting as the storage device, Windows File Sharing is enabled under System Settings, Sharing, File Sharing, Options.
4. You're using SMB version 3 where possible. SMB version 2 also works, but not with a large MTU.

For brand-specific setup and more network-share troubleshooting, see the NAS Troubleshooting Guide.

Setting Up Storage From a Remote

When you set up storage from a Roon Remote rather than on the server itself, you enter the network share path of the folder you want to watch. Confirm the music folder has the right share permissions for your account.

For step-by-step sharing setup, see adding a network share on Windows or on Mac.

Confirm It Worked

Once the folder is added, it appears in the Storage tab and Roon begins importing. A track count climbs as it scans, and your music starts showing up in your library. A large library can take a while to finish analyzing.

If You Still Can't Add Your Folder

If your folder won't add after checking the path, the share settings, and your credentials, please get in touch with our Technical Support team here about adding a local or network folder.

To help us help you quickly, include:

• The device and operating system running Roon Server (or the appliance model, such as Nucleus).
• Where your music is stored, and the exact path you entered.
• The exact error message you see.
• For a NAS, the brand and model, and whether other devices can reach the same share.