Because the hard part is matching the correct media. Given Plex already has all of this, moving/renaming files according to the match using a convention is really easy. Managing the meta data all in one place is a hell of a lot better than using an array of external tools and then also fixing the match in Plex. If Plex can't match then it shouldn't rename until the user fixes it with the existing "fix incorrect match" feature. Of course Plex can get it wrong, in this case the art work etc is all wrong, and the user will of course correct it.
Honestly it's a no-brainer!
What you are failing to accept, or understand, is that Plex needs the files to already be named correctly for it to match the media correctly when it does a metadata search. It won't match much of anything if the files themselves are named incorrectly to start with. So I don't understand how you expect them to match it and name it correctly, when it needs the filename to be correct already to match for its metadata search? Kind of like putting the Cart before the Horse...
What you are failing to accept, or understand, is that Plex needs the files to already be named correctly for it to match the media correctly when it does a metadata search. It won't match much of anything if the files themselves are named incorrectly to start with. So I don't understand how you expect them to match it and name it correctly, when it needs the filename to be correct already to match for its metadata search? Kind of like putting the Cart before the Horse...
No I do appreciate that. I'm not suggesting anything is changed with regard to how it currently matches. The point I'm making is once it's matched, Plex is in a good place to organise the folder and file names based on this enhanced meta data. e.g organise into folders for shows/series etc. the purpose is to take a set of files with messy inconsistent names and organise them in the sane way iTunes can organise audio.
Your request is a non-starter. Plex Devs have stated previously that they will not modify source media files.
I guess that's the point in feature requests and voting. I wasn't expecting to debate it, just saying how useful I would find it, and I personally would love it. Failing that I'll write my own external tool.
I guess that's the point in feature requests and voting. I wasn't expecting to debate it, just saying how useful I would find it, and I personally would love it. Failing that I'll write my own external tool.
This isn't the first time this request has come up and certainly won't be the last. In short, if your feature request has anything to do with modifying the source files for any reason or situation it is an automatic no. Devs have stated previously they will not do this.
As for external tools, There is PlexTools 3rd Party Channel you can install. I myself have this installed and working for it's subtitle feature. I would be cautious about it's renamer, I had to do a file-recovery undelete to get a movie back the one time it clobbered the video into oblivion.
This isn't the first time this request has come up and certainly won't be the last. In short, if your feature request has anything to do with modifying the source files for any reason or situation it is an automatic no. Devs have stated previously they will not do this.
As for external tools, There is PlexTools 3rd Party Channel you can install. I myself have this installed and working for it's subtitle feature. I would be cautious about it's renamer, I had to do a file-recovery undelete to get a movie back the one time it clobbered the video into oblivion.
Well, what's the reasoning behind the automatic no? Is there a link to an explanation from the developers, or statements already made on this?
Well, what's the reasoning behind the automatic no? Is there a link to an explanation from the developers, or statements already made on this?
My guess.....Touching users medias eq. risk of getting prosecuted ;), as well as avoiding the risk of creating a media storm damaging Plex as a whole
But have yet to find an official statement, but when that's said, I agree with them....
I made a small plug-in (SRT2Utf-8) that actually alters users medias, but to cover my a**, I build in a default option to create a backup.
If the end user disables this from the prefs, then it's his/her's problem....
But backing up a simple srt file, compared to like a 1080p mkv file is something else, but granted, they could as an alternative create an xml file with a naming history, but.....
I guess they already thought about this, clever as they are :wub: , and concluded it's not worth it
Me, OTOH, was/is simply naive and stupid :rolleyes:
At the end of the day, you should already have the basic folder structure in place for your TV series and movies - then it's simply a matter of moving your media files into the correct folder and letting Plex work it's magic to scrape the names and match then using one of the Agents.
In the above, there honestly is no reason at all to rename the media files, as Plex will match them and from that point on they are organised in your PMS library - who honestly cares how the files are actually named if PMS still matches ithe file correctly and it is sorted in your library correctly...
Beyond that, your only alternatives are actual file renaming programs that have been listed already - and again for your convenience:
TheRenamer (Windows)
tvnamer (Windows)
SickBeard (Windows, Linux, OSX)
FileBot (Windows, Linux, OSX)
I'm sure there are plenty more, but the above seem to be the most popular tools for renaming and organising tv/movie files correctly.
My guess.....Touching users medias eq. risk of getting prosecuted ;), as well as avoiding the risk of creating a media storm damaging Plex as a whole
But have yet to find an official statement, but when that's said, I agree with them....
It only takes a small coding error to seriously mess up months of work. I write scripts for some renaming, transcoding and moving stuff around on my own servers. Even in such a hugely controlled environment, you see a simple regular expression not behaving well on the entire population (let's say adding symbols to file names) and it will kill your entire collection. I've seen it happen more than once using very well-tested code (mixing Unix and Windows naming is a nightmare to begin with). There is no way on earth you can touch users files (where their biggest problem is that they do not adhere to basic file naming conventions) on 3 platforms, and avoid disaster. A badly recognized file is easy to fix, especially if the filename is clear to the end user. Renaming/moving 1000+ files accordingly, resulting in mixed up files, is bound to annoy someone....
At the end of the day, you should already have the basic folder structure in place for your TV series and movies - then it's simply a matter of moving your media files into the correct folder and letting Plex work it's magic to scrape the names and match then using one of the Agents.
In the above, there honestly is no reason at all to rename the media files, as Plex will match them and from that point on they are organised in your PMS library - who honestly cares how the files are actually named if PMS still matches ithe file correctly and it is sorted in your library correctly...
Beyond that, your only alternatives are actual file renaming programs that have been listed already - and again for your convenience:
TheRenamer (Windows)
tvnamer (Windows)
SickBeard (Windows, Linux, OSX)
FileBot (Windows, Linux, OSX)
I'm sure there are plenty more, but the above seem to be the most popular tools for renaming and organising tv/movie files correctly.
OCD people care. ;)
The tool tvnamer is written in Python, so it's available on all Python platforms (including OS X and Linux).
Personally, I decided to walk away from the nested movie folder structure and just dump everything into a few "category" folders, then use Filebot, but if you really want the folder structure for movies with all of the file names corrected, what about Media Center Master? When I used it, I was focused on metadata compatible with WMC, XBMC and WD Live TV, but you could (I think) do something like this:
- Set the Organization to rename folders
- Set the primary fetcher to TheMoveDB
- Leave the secondary fetcher blank
- Point it at a folder full of movies (I would do maybe 20 at a time, but if you get more confident you can do many)
- After it scans, select everything and tell it to fetch
- Then when it is done just use Windows to find and delete all of the .xml, .nfo, .jpg, etc. files
It's probably not quite this simple, but I think MCM is capable.
ViMediaManager is a media manager for Mac OS X, allowing you to gather, store, and manage information, extra art, trailers and television tunes for your movie, television and anime collections.
Features
Manage your movie, television and anime collections.
Automatically rename files and folders according to highly customisable preferences.
Get trailers, posters, fanart, banners, clearart, character art, disc art, logo’s, thumbnails, extra thumbs, extra fanart, trailers and theme songs for your movies and series from the aforementioned sources, Youtube.com, HD-Trailers.net, televisiontunes.comand Fanart.tv.
Create, update, and edit NFO metadata; scans media for file info (codecs, resolution, etc) and is saved with the media.
Extra art chooser for downloading and choosing images to use for posters, backdrops, etc.
Extra media chooser for downloading trailers and television tunes.
Shows television and anime airing status, and next episode air date information thanks to TVRage.com.
A feature-rich episodes manager that displays all known television and anime episodes, allowing you to keep track of which episodes you've already watched, and to edit and save NFO metadata with the episode files.
Set manager for creating and editing movie sets/collections.
Find more to watch with recommendations from RottenTomatoes, TheMovieDB and IMDb.
I know I can modify the tag information and what is displayed within Plex but I would like to be able to rename the files to conform to what metadata I have. So I don't have to use a media manager anymore.
Not going to happen. Plex has mentioned in the past that they will not modify your original media files. The only exception is being able to delete the file. You might be able to get a plugin to do it, but Plex will probably never have this feature. Personally I like the idea of Plex not messing around with my files. I do not like that delete feature and have it turned off on my system.
If you can get enough people to like this request, maybe you can get Plex to change their stance on the topic.
I have a large collection of movies in my Plex Media Server and in the past I had to match some of them manually in Plex cause of the non-perfect fit of file name. Since I spent hours to do that, I’d like to rename the files in local with the correct names to be able to rescan my library again, withouth doing that manually matching, and also to have the correct name files on my PC.
Since the “link” between the file and metadata on Plex already exist, it should not to be so difficult to implement this kind of operation (that is, in fact, just the opposite of what Plex do when you add new contents).
I suggest eventually to let the user choice which metadata to export, compatibly with the file.
I didn’t want to advertise them for free, so I didn’t mention it. Thank you, I know the software and I will not pay 50 $ for something like this. On top of that, I have read that it fails, more than often.
Plex feature, on the other hand, can not fail because you’re doing this AFTER you match all your data and check that everything is correct.
Mod Edit: There’s been a number of suggestions on this topic (incl. a number of remarks from Plex members/mods stating it’s unlikely to happen and general remarks pointing to use Filebot instead). None with any active votes…
Merging those threads as part of “corona spring cleaning”
Please search for existing feature suggestions before double-posting to avoid distraction of votes!
