I have a huge collection of anime that I am throwing at plex all at once, second time I am doing this. When I did this a couple years ago I spent several days altering pretty much every single file using mask to delete sub group names and file specs, leaving just a number denoting the eps number. I worked out a lot of naming issues back then but still to this date about %8 of the files still need manual matching.
Is there a way to get plex or an external program using plex’s matched data to properly rename files and directories permanently?
Ok, I am trying to avoid having to re-match files AGAIN since I now have plex synched up %100. I can make a backup of the plex library files but it would have been nicer if I could imprint the plex library structure onto the hard copies.
I recommend you to use a software like the above mentioned from now on, before you add new content into Plex.
Not only when you encounter mismatches. Just make it part of your usual workflow.
@OttoKerner said:
I recommend you to use a software like the above mentioned from now on, before you add new content into Plex.
Not only when you encounter mismatches. Just make it part of your usual workflow.
Here’s another vote for that process.
Before ANYTHING is added to ANY library it first goes through a few procedures. My ‘procedures’ are more involved than most would perform, but one of the first procedures is a run through FileBot (link in my signature).
Simply put, FileBot ‘Pre-Matches’ and renames your files for perfect Plex use BEFORE they ever go in a library. Once you drop that file in - it’s over in minutes, it’s already been matched - the data is retrieved almost instantly - and that’s the end of that.
Actually I remember using filebot before, I think I had issues where if filebot couldn’t make a reasonable prediction on what a set was for, it wasn’t possible to force it into a proper match (In plex, if I throw the anidb.net number at the end, it will suggest the one I want). I’ll have to give it another go, I have to do my anime movies and OVAs now and I recall these being the biggest match issue.
@jeffmd said:
Actually I remember using filebot before, I think I had issues where if filebot couldn’t make a reasonable prediction on what a set was for, it wasn’t possible to force it into a proper match
Yikes…so filebot cost a chunk of change for windows 10 users. Very unfortunate.
And I think my problem earlier is I wasn’t able to get it to use the data bases I need so it wasn’t finding some of my series. It was a while ago but what ever it was it certainly was a big enough problem that I wasn’t able to fix my stuff with it.
FileBot is worth every penny of the meager cost you ‘may’ incur.
What is it - if you stop looking very hard - 20 bucks?
The pain and suffering of having to manually name your files and/or the pain and suffering of leaping into the ring with Plex every day if you don’t - coupled with the cost of those Dr. Visits, blood pressure medication and tranquilizers makes that 20 bucks for FileBot a sound investment if you ask me.
Accept that I already tried filebot once and for one reason or another it completely did not work for me. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m not going to blindly throw $20 at something that I tried and kicked out the door for what ever reason a year ago.
@jeffmd said:
Accept that I already tried filebot once and for one reason or another it completely did not work for me. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m not going to blindly throw $20 at something that I tried and kicked out the door for what ever reason a year ago.
There is other software available for free.
Try theRenamer for instance. It is not as powerful as Filebot, but for basic renaming of tv shows it is usuable.
The renamer is a joke? I gave it one of my series that is just eps numbers and it complains the episode titles are not part of the file name? Isn’t that why I am using the program to begin with? Also seems useless for movies and OVAs.
I know this is an old topic but I have to agree with the original poster. Plex SHOULD be able to rename files. When I have hundreds of files on my server that I’m editing remotely it’s a pain to leave plex, go hunt the server, open the folder, find the file and rename the file manually, then return to plex update the database because it just lost the file, then check to see if it matched it up properly. That’s asinine. To even suggest that’s the better way to do it makes no sense. And I use filebot as well as MetaX. Sorry but filebot makes mistakes sometimes. And when you rip several seasons of a TV show and rippers don’t always name them, it’s easy to make mistakes.
Do any of you use Media Center Master, there is a free version too. And it essentially looks through your file, identifies the movie, renames the movie and directory and keeps it nice and tidy. You can then have Plex just look in the cleaned directories and it finds it with 99.9% accuracy. There is even a Media Center Master plugin for Plex, but I don’t think it allows the rename either. So I have uTorrent drop the completed download in a directory that MCM monitors, renames and then Plex sees and updates accordingly. Works flawlessly for my 1k movies.
