Collection of libraries to combine media types like TV shows and movies?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.23.2.4656-85f0adf5b
Player Version#: 1.31.1.2262-74fdc6b7

Combining movies and TV shows seems to be something that is impossible. From my searching, the typical response is usually something like: “This cannot be done because of the way plex handles metadata, so they need to be separate”.

What I’m wondering is if it would be possible to make a “Collection” of libraries? The idea being that you could have separate TV show and movie libraries to make the agents happy, but combine the two into a collection that gets displayed as one library on the left pane.

So instead of having separate libraries on the left pane like this:

  • TV Series (TV agent)
  • TV Movies (Movie agent)

You could have a single item in the left pane like this instead:

  • TV Shows (collection of TV Series and TV Movies libraries)

Basically, it would have the option to hide or just unpin “TV Series” and “TV Movies” from the left pane, and just show or pin the “TV Shows” collection. When you select the “TV Shows” collection, it would display content from all libraries in the collection. So TV shows and TV movies would be displayed on the same page similar to how they’re displayed on the Home screen, even though underneath, they’re separate.

On the “Recommended” tab for the collection of libs, it would be displayed exactly like the Home screen, where it shows both TV series and movies above/below each other or merged. On the “Library” tab, it would display movies and tv series side by side. On the “Collections” tab, it would show media collections from all libs in the library collection.

If you re-scan or refresh the metadata for the “collection of libraries”, it would go through each lib in the collection and scan/refresh individually. EG: it would first do the “TV Series” lib and then do the “TV Movies” lib. So that you can keep them separate, but they are displayed as one “Library” on the frontend.

Maybe something like in Settings → Manage → Libraries, there would be an option to create/modify collections of libraries, similar to picking which content users can access.

Would something like that be possible?

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If you use the identical Collection name in each library, they will show up when you access the collection from the top menu in any involved library. For instance, I have Harry Potter movies in a Movie library, audiobooks in a Music library, and soundtrack albums in another Music library. All items in each have a Collection name of “Harry Potter.”

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This can’t be added to the left menu, but if you access the Collection from the Collections tab at the top of the library:

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1 Like
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Yeah, the Collection feature for the media is great. I was just hoping there was a way to minimize entries in the left menu and get all tv movies and tv series to show on one window while keeping their agents separate by using a collection for entire libraries.

To minimize a left menu like this:

  • TV Series (TV agent)
  • TV Movies (Movie agent)
  • TV Children’s Series (TV agent)
  • TV Children’s Movies (Movie agent)
  • TV Discovery Series (TV agent)
  • TV Discovery Movies (Movie agent)

Into this:

  • TV Shows (TV Series & TV Movies)
  • TV Children’s Shows (TV Children’s Series & TV Children’s Movies)
  • TV Discovery Shows (TV Discovery Series & TV Discovery Movies)

If it’s not possible, then I will definitely be digging deep into collections for the media. Thanks for the info!

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