Adding track rating and playlist info from tag when importing music

Dev Community Dev/API Corner
1

I am trying to automate aspects of my music library in Plex and am wondering if this could be handled by a custom agent.

When I purchase and rip new music outside of Plex I add the track rating as a metadata tag. I could also do this for desired playlist(s). I am wondering if I could set up a Plex agent that would read the rating from the tag and apply that same rating in Plex. Also, it would be great if it would read the playlist tag and then automatically add that track to the identified playlist(s) in Plex. I am new to plugin development and am not sure how to read the tags since Plex by default does not read ID tags, and how to add the tracks to specific playlists as I did not see that in the API documentation.

Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks!

2

I have the same issue. I’ve been using J. River for years but always have problems with networking. I use Plex for movies and the networking feature is great. I have been exploring replacing J. River with Plex for music but am struggling with smart playlist creation, which is an absolute necessity for me. I understand that custom filters may allow me to create smart-like playlists but I can’t experiment with it because my track ratings don’t appear in Plex. The rating is in the tag but Plex doesn’t display it and attempts to filter on track rating comes up empty.

Is there a way to cause Plex to bring metadata in from the embedded tag. I am most interested in bringing in track rating but I would also be interested in bringing in any other tag metadata that is missing in Plex.

3

There is no way to import music tag information as far as I know. Plex may be fine for building a music library, but it couldn’t be much worse for assuming control of a large, existing library.

There is a way to build a library based on an iTunes library (which includes ratings), but this requires you to come from iTunes, and it was still pretty bad when I tried it. I got lots of partial playlists and half of my ratings didn’t migrate over.

I found a python script that reliably imports playlist files (e.g., .m3u) and then builds a matching playlist in Plex. My initial thought was to create playlist files based on rating, import them into Plex, and then assign ratings in Plex en masse. Unfortunately, you can only select one track at a time in a Plex playlist, which for me still means individually assigning ratings for thousands of songs. Not going to happen!

I believe it is probably possible to modify the playlist python script to write track ratings instead of/in addition to playlist, but I haven’t figured out how yet.

4

I’m coming from J. River as well and have modified a program made by vbtrek to allow syncing of ratings between file tag and Plex (on a selected account).
Check it out, i imported all my ratings successfully with it :

2 Likes
6

This is exactly what I’m looking for. But how do I use it?

7

I have updated the Readme and added a section “Installation and Configuration” :

Check it out and get back to me if you have any questions !

1 Like
8

Perfect, thank you! I got it working per your instructions, and the ratings synced perfectly. The playlists aren’t syncing, though. I use MusicBee instead of iTunes, but it allows me to export my library as an xml file that iTunes can read, so this must be why the ratings synced but not the playlists. Do the playlists need to be in a specific file extension or folder?

Also, to run this program on a task scheduler, which file do I select to run: the application file or something else?

9

I am not the one who coded the playlist sync. It was made by vbtrek here :

As far as I know, you have to configure the path for iTunes’ (or whatever) playlists. Then it should sync when the option is ticked.
Also, when everything is configured, the sync process should start automatically on the start of the app. You should only have to add it as a Scheduled Task.