I’ve seen alot of confusion around here and myself over Extras in Plex. A VERY simple solution would be to add “Extras” as an option for Extra_Directory_Type and simply make it associated as if “Other” was used. Very easy fix.
Rationale is for broader support of libraries. Many existing library renaming tools are aware of the “Extras” folder, but not the granularity that Plex is setup for. Much of this is because Extras were really ‘pioneered’ into support with the Extras Kodi add-on, which looks in the “Extras” folder. https://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:Extras
A similar topic was posted in discussion, but I don’t think this is a discussion. I think this is a basic feature add to broaden library standard support. There are other similar postings around.
I do have to ask… What do you see wrong with using the “Other” directory.
Ultimately, the only thing that the various different extras categories actually does, it add the associated word underneath the title of the extra file…
That’s it !!.. It’s literally nothing more than that…
Historically, /Extras was intentionally excluded in the Plex scanners. Back when Plex had no support for local extras.
So there are quite a few veteran Plex users who have organized their library with this in mind. (either to simply hide some videos inside the Extras folder or because the media files are also used with other software apart from Plex)
To change this Plex behaviour now, would cause all those legacy collections to suddenly populate the files as local extras. And that would quite likely enrage those server admins.
I sort of explained that I would use the Other category; but would suggest we populate the Extras folder using it as well. This would be to allow for support of libraries tailored around Extras support that came long before Plex implemented.
This is a fair point that I had not considered. I would argue that consistency is better however. Extras as a folder is pretty standard, it would be ideal not to add inconsistency in Plex.
That said, my ultimate preference would be giving this power back to users in Advanced Configurations. No reason Extras in general cannot be toggled and granularly configured. Not a fan of simplicity being the excuse to reduce features as we’ve seen in many applications in the 21st century…but I know that’s a bigger ask for Plex than just adding a new folder to be categorized.
Plex suddenly started scanning files I had in “extras” folders specifically so they wouldn’t be scanned. When did this change? Is it a mistake or a new policy?
It’s definitely bad for me as I use “extras” folders to store stuff I don’t want scanned at the moment.
I cannot seem to reproduce this. Extras in a extras subfolder are still ignored on my setup.
So if that’s different for you… what version of PMS do you have installed and what particular agent(s) are you using in that case?
I can reproduce it with different series. Here’s a way you can see it:
Find a series with currently working Special episodes (e.g. S00E0X)
Move one from the Specials folder into an “extras” folder
Expected behavior: episode should disappear as it’s in a folder that should not be scanned.
Actual behavior: episode is re-detected in the new location. “Get Info” on the episode will show it’s now located in the “extras” folder but still being scanned
Hope this helps. It only started happening in the last PMS version or two.
