MagazineFetcher

MagazineFetcher is an automated tool that downloads, extracts, normalizes, classifies, renames, and organizes digital magazines and newspapers. It is designed for NAS environments (Synology, QNAP, Unraid) but also supports full debugging and development under Windows.

The tool integrates with qBittorrent, processes RSS feeds (e.g., Immortuos), and sorts all downloaded PDFs into a clean, structured library.

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File a bug report on Github.

🚀Features

• RSS Feed Monitoring
  Automatically detects new magazine or newspaper packs.

• qBittorrent Integration Adds torrents via the Web API and monitors download progress.

• Smart DownloadWatcher
  Finds the correct download directory based on the title and waits until the download is fully completed.

• Archive Extraction
  Supports ZIP, RAR, and 7z archives — or copies PDFs directly if no archives are present.

• Filename Normalization
  Fixes encoding issues (e.g., Ǭ, ÇÏ, Ç?) and converts them into clean characters (ü, ä, e, etc.).

• Classification & Sorting
  Automatically assigns magazines to target folders based on a configurable mapping.

• Renaming Engine
  Renames files using a customizable pattern such as:

text {MagazineTitle} - {IssueDate:yyyy-MM} - {IssueNumber:D2}.pdf

🛠 System Requirements

• .NET 10 Runtime
• qBittorrent with Web UI enabled
• Access to download and target directories
• Optional: Windows network drive mapping for debugging

📁 Configuration

Configuration is handled through:

• appsettings.json (base configuration)
• appsettings.Development.json (Windows debugging)
• secrets.json (sensitive data such as passwords)

Example appsettings.json

{ 
    "FeedUrl": "https://example.com/rss", 
    "HistoryFile": "/share/Multimedia/apps/MagazineFetcher/history.txt", 
    "TempDirectory": "/share/Multimedia/apps/MagazineFetcher/tmp", 
    "RenamePattern": "{Magazine}-{Issue}-{Year}.pdf", 
    "MagazineMapping": { 
        "Der Spiegel": "/share/Multimedia/Magazines/Der Spiegel", 
        "Focus": "/share/Multimedia/Magazines/Focus", 
        "Für Sie": "/share/Multimedia/Magazines/Für Sie" },
    "QBittorrentClient": { 
        "BaseUrl": "http://192.168.178.30:6363", 
        "Username": "admin", 
        "Password": "xxx", 
        "DownloadPath": "/share/Multimedia/torrent/finished" }, 
    "RssFilter": { 
        "TitleContains": [ "Zeitungen und Magazine", "Magazin Pack" ], 
        "TitleRegex": "Zeitungen und Magazine \\d{2} \\d{2} \\d{4}" } 
}

🧩 Key Components

• DownloadWatcher Detects the correct download directory based on the torrent title

• Waits until the directory becomes stable (no size changes)

• ArchiveExtractor Extracts ZIP/RAR/7z archives

• Copies PDFs directly if no archives are found

• Avoids /tmp overflow on NAS systems

• FileNameNormalizer Fixes encoding issues from Immortuos

• Converts broken sequences like Ç? into readable characters

• Classifier Matches magazine names to target folders

• Skips unknown magazines gracefully

• Renamer Extracts year and issue

• Builds new filenames based on the configured pattern

🧪 Debugging on Windows

• Map your NAS directory as a network drive (e.g., M:)

• Create appsettings.Development.json with Windows paths

• Run the project in Visual Studio

Example appsettings.Development.json

"HistoryFile": "M:\\apps\\MagazineFetcher\\history.txt", 
"TempDirectory": "M:\\apps\\MagazineFetcher\\tmp", 
"QBittorrentClient:DownloadPath": "M:\\torrent\\finished"

Installation

• Download the latest Release from Github.
• Unzip the Archive to your desired location.
• Add a cron entry to run the app regularly (e.g. daily)

▶️ Running the Application

On Linux (NAS)

dotnet MagazineFetcher.dll

On Windows (Debugging) Use Visual Studio → Start Debugging

Folder Structure

/Magazines
    /Der Spiegel
        /2026
            Der Spiegel-03-2026.pdf
    /Focus
        /2026
            Focus-02-2026.pdf

/apps/MagazineFetcher
    history.txt
    tmp/

📝 Logging

• Detailed progress logs
• Error logs for extraction, classification, and renaming
• History prevents reprocessing of old releases

🧹 Cleanup

• Temporary directories are removed after processing
• History file is updated automatically

Usage

• Get a RSS Feed what contains a regualy published Torrent with your wished magazines.
• Place that FeedUrl in the appsettings.json.
• Set a valid path for the "TempDirectory" and the "HistoryFile".
• Choose a naming Pattern in "RenamePattern".
• Also fill the QBittorrent Settings in the Correspnding Part.
• Inside the "RssFilter" you can set the name of the torrent files you want to watch.
• Finally map the magazines you want to download to your target folders in "MagazineMapping".
• Just start the app and see the magic happens.