Does PLEX modify media directory in any way?

General Discussions
1

I’m on a network with a shared directory containing media which is accessible by multiple users.
Since I’m a fan of PLEX, I’d like to run my own server on my laptop and point it to the shared dir.

I cannot, however, modify the shared dir as I am not the owner. Which leads me to my question:
Does PLEX modify directories containing media on the network? Or does it store all media/metadata locally on the PLEX servers computer?

Thanks

2

@BrentMoore said:
Does PLEX modify directories containing media on the network?

No.

Or does it store all media/metadata locally on the PLEX servers computer?

Yes.

BUT: for Plex to work perfectly, the filenames and folder organisation of the media files must follow some rules. If your media don’t follow these rules, you may have some issue with Plex recognising your media.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/categories/200028098-Media-Preparation

In the worst case you’d have to give up on Plex ‘matching’ your media and thus give up most of what makes Plex beautiful.
But just give it a spin as-is. Maybe you are lucky.