Environment variables

Set these in Settings → Environment Variables in the menu-bar tray.

On/off values

Every Fregata on/off switch below accepts the same values, and case doesn’t matter — 1, true, True, TRUE, yes, y, on, and t all mean on; 0, false, no, n, off, and f all mean off. Surrounding spaces are ignored. Leaving a variable unset, or setting it to an empty value, keeps the documented default.

If you set one to something else entirely (say enable), Fregata keeps the default and writes a warning naming the value to the log — so a typo tells you rather than silently doing nothing.

Note

Environment variable changes take effect when Frigate starts. After editing them, restart Fregata from the menu bar.

Frigate+

PLUS_API_KEY

Default	Effect
unset	Frigate+ Subscription not enabled
Frigate+ API Key	Frigate+ Subscription enabled

Needed to take advantage of a Frigate+ subscription, if you have one.

Fregata-specific

These are the env vars introduced by the Fregata port itself.

FRIGATE_CACHE_SIZE_MB

Default	Effect
computed	Ceiling for the Basic RAM disk size in megabytes (1024 MB max). Default is a per-camera-config formula; set explicitly to lock a value. Does not apply to the Smart memory (tmpfs) cache backing — that one has a fixed 1 GB sparse cap that’s not user-tunable. See Performance → RAM-disk cache for the two modes and how you picked one in the welcome wizard.

FREGATA_EXPOSE_INTERNAL_PORT

Default	Effect
unset	Port 5000 bound to 127.0.0.1 only (loopback).
1	Port 5000 bound to all interfaces (0.0.0.0), reachable from your LAN.

No authentication on port 5000

Port 5000 has no authentication middleware. Any device on your network that can reach it gets full admin API access — no login required. Only set this on a network you fully trust (home LAN behind a router, not a shared office or open Wi-Fi).

For most use cases, port 8971 with a Bearer token or auth.enabled: false in config.yml is a safer path. See Using the API from local automation tools.

See On/off values for the accepted values — case doesn’t matter. Unset keeps the default loopback binding. A warning is written to the Fregata log at startup whenever this is active.

If port 5000 is already bound by something else — most commonly macOS’s AirPlay Receiver, which holds it permanently whenever enabled — Fregata detects the conflict and automatically serves the same unauthenticated endpoint on port 5050 instead, leaving port 5000 itself loopback-only. You don’t need to disable AirPlay Receiver; check the Fregata log at startup to confirm which port is active. See Port 5000 already in use? for details.

Use 127.0.0.1:5000, not localhost:5000

That conflict detection only runs when this variable is set to expose port 5000 to your LAN. In the default loopback-only mode there’s no bind conflict to catch, because AirPlay Receiver binds all interfaces (IPv4 and IPv6) while Fregata binds only 127.0.0.1. Since localhost often resolves to the IPv6 loopback address (::1) before the IPv4 one on macOS, http://localhost:5000/... can silently land on AirPlay Receiver instead of Fregata. Always use http://127.0.0.1:5000/... explicitly.

FREGATA_INTERNAL_PORT_FALLBACK

Default	Effect
5050	Port used for LAN-exposed unauthenticated access when port 5000 can’t be bound (see FREGATA_EXPOSE_INTERNAL_PORT above).
<port>	Use this port instead, e.g. if 5050 is also taken on your network.

Only relevant when FREGATA_EXPOSE_INTERNAL_PORT=1 and port 5000 is unavailable. Has no effect otherwise. Same no-authentication warning as FREGATA_EXPOSE_INTERNAL_PORT applies to whichever port ends up active.

Can’t be set to a port Fregata already uses internally — 5000, 5001, 5002, 8082, 8971, 1984, 8554, or 8555. An override matching one of those is ignored (with a warning in the log) and the default (5050) is used instead.

FREGATA_EXPOSE_GO2RTC_PORT

Default	Effect
unset	Port 1984 (go2rtc’s admin API) bound to 127.0.0.1 only (loopback).
1	Port 1984 bound to all interfaces (0.0.0.0), reachable from your LAN.

No authentication on port 1984

go2rtc’s admin API has no authentication of its own. Any device on your network that can reach it can read and change stream/restream configuration and pull RTSP/WebRTC feeds directly — bypassing Frigate’s auth entirely. Only set this on a network you fully trust.

See On/off values for the accepted values — case doesn’t matter. Unset keeps the default loopback binding. A warning is written to the Fregata log at startup whenever this is active.

Unlike FREGATA_EXPOSE_INTERNAL_PORT, there’s no conflict fallback here — go2rtc is its own process, so a failed bind only stops go2rtc, not the rest of Fregata, and port 1984 isn’t known to collide with anything on macOS. If you’ve set go2rtc.api.listen explicitly in your own config.yml, that takes precedence over this env var.

FREGATA_EXPOSE_RTSP_PORT

Default	Effect
unset	Port 8554 (go2rtc’s RTSP restream) bound to all interfaces (0.0.0.0), reachable from your LAN.
0	Port 8554 bound to 127.0.0.1 only (loopback) — locks the RTSP restream down to the same Mac.

No authentication on port 8554, by default

The RTSP restream has no authentication of its own by default. Any device on your network that can reach it can watch — and for cameras with two-way talk configured, potentially control — your camera streams directly. If you don’t need the RTSP feed from another device (VLC, Home Assistant’s RTSP camera platform, another NVR), set FREGATA_EXPOSE_RTSP_PORT=0 to restrict it to loopback-only. If you do need LAN access, add a username/password instead (see below).

Set it to an off value (0, false, no, off — see On/off values; case doesn’t matter) to disable LAN exposure. Unset keeps the default LAN-open binding. A warning is written to the Fregata log at startup whenever the port is locked to loopback, so you always have a visible reminder that it’s disabled.

Unlike FREGATA_EXPOSE_INTERNAL_PORT, there’s no conflict fallback here — go2rtc is its own process, so a failed bind only stops go2rtc, not the rest of Fregata, and port 8554 isn’t known to collide with anything on macOS. If you’ve set go2rtc.rtsp.listen explicitly in your own config.yml, that takes precedence over this env var.

To require a login instead of relying on network exposure alone, set go2rtc.rtsp.username/password in config.yml:

go2rtc:
  rtsp:
    username: "admin"
    password: "pass"

Clients then connect with rtsp://admin:pass@<mac-ip>:8554/<camera_name>. This is go2rtc’s own credential check — independent of FREGATA_EXPOSE_RTSP_PORT, independent of Frigate’s auth.enabled, and separate from whatever username/password your cameras use upstream.

FREGATA_TELEMETRY_DISABLED

Default	Effect
unset	Privacy-respecting Telemetry included in license check.
1	Telemetry omitted.

The contents of the telemetry are listed at Privacy & telemetry. Setting this to 1 is a complete opt-out — nothing telemetry-shaped leaves the Mac.

go2rtc

GO2RTC_ALLOW_ARBITRARY_EXEC

Default	Effect
unset	echo:, expr:, and exec: go2rtc stream sources are rejected — dropped from the generated go2rtc config (and from the PUT /go2rtc/streams admin API), with an error written to the log.
true	Those sources are allowed.

An upstream Frigate switch — note the GO2RTC_ prefix, not FREGATA_ or FRIGATE_. go2rtc’s exec:/echo:/expr: sources run arbitrary local commands, so Fregata disables them by default, matching upstream Frigate. Turn it on only if you deliberately use a custom exec: restream — a split fisheye, a drawtext overlay, a GPU rotation pipeline.

Unlike Fregata’s own on/off switches above, this one accepts a narrower set of values: only true, 1, or yes turns it on (case doesn’t matter). Anything else — including on, y, or enable — leaves it off, matching upstream Frigate’s parser exactly.

Fregata’s own internal exec: streams — the birdseye restream and the adaptive-live rungs — are never affected by this switch; it gates only the sources you write into go2rtc.streams yourself.

See Custom go2rtc stream sources for the full behavior, the {{output}} token, and brace-doubling.

Optional Frigate config wiring

These are read by config.yml via the {} YAML tag, not by Fregata or the launcher. They exist because writing secrets in plaintext into a file is generally a bad habit.

FRIGATE_MQTT_PASSWORD

Conventional name for the MQTT broker password. Reference in config.yml:

mqtt:
  password: {FRIGATE_MQTT_PASSWORD}

You’re free to use any other name, as long as it starts with FRIGATE_ — Frigate’s config loader only substitutes env vars with that prefix. Pick a convention and stick with it.

Other secrets

The same pattern works for any secret your config references: FRIGATE_GENAI_KEY, FRIGATE_HOMEASSISTANT_TOKEN, FRIGATE_MQTT_PASSWORD, etc. Set them in the in-app editor and reference them with {NAME} in config.yml, using the FRIGATE_ prefix.