Does the TV Shows library really have to be one directory deep?

baroquedub · March 30, 2023, 11:55pm

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My TV Shows are organised in sub categories like CHILDREN, DOCUMENTARIES, SERIALS, MUSIC (music documentaries or videos, not audio files)

But everything I read about how I should set things up for Plex seems to imply that I should have everything in the root ‘TV’ folder. Really? That can’t be right?!

I’m running a little Vero4K box with OSMC on it and that has no problems with my file structure. I really don’t want to have to change things around and mess up its library just to pander to “Naming and Organizing Your TV Show Files” on the Plex website…

Currently (after the initial scan) I pretty much have everything nested within just 8 Titles, which just isn’t right:

Copied below is the directory structure below the main TV library folder.

Does anyone have any workaround for making this work or should I just stick with OSMC for TV, and just use Plex for Films and Music (audio) files? (the latter it really does excel at!)

X:__MP4s\TV\

±–_ART
| ±–How Art Made The World (BBC)
| ±–Modern Masters
| ±–The Owl’s Legacy (1989, Chris Marker)
| ±–Ways of Seeing

±–_TUTORIALS
±–AE tuts +
±–AF.Mastering.With.Izotope.Ozone
±–Digital Publishing With InDesign CC
±–Jordan Rudess - Keyboard Wizardry
±–Ultimate GameDev Tutorials
±–UNITY
| ±–UNITY C# Tutorials
±–VR

tom80H · March 31, 2023, 12:03am

You could point your library to the added folders instead of the TV folder.
If you do that, make sure to drop the TV folder from the library list and avoid recursive links.
Even with that in mind – Plex does require a rather strict folder structure when it comes to tv shows. It appears you’ll need to rework that structure quite significantly to avoid those extra layers.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/

That being said… have you considered creating different libraries for those sections?
I guess you created those for a purpose to start with (still leaving you with some clean-up).

smann · March 31, 2023, 12:27am

Unfortunately the TV Shows library does weird things when going deeper. I had all my movies in 4K UHD, FHD, HD, SD, and Needs Updating folders and thought, “Why don’t I have my shows set up the same way?” Did it and it only found like 4 of my 30 shows, 2 were combined together, and 1 was horribly mismatched lol. Then it had to redo all the intro and credit detections when I changed it back. TV Shows is way more finicky with structure.

But yeah, point the library to the Art, Children, Documentaries, Music, Serials, Tutorials, and YouTube folders instead of the overarching TV folder. It will work just fine. Could also put all the shows in the TV folder and use Labels or Collections inside of Plex to organize based on those categories. But that would need to be redone manually if your library ever corrupts.

baroquedub · March 31, 2023, 10:16am

Thanks both.

Makes sense, creating different libraries for each section makes sense. Should have thought of that!

OttoKerner · March 31, 2023, 11:38am

No, that’s not what was suggested. Don’t create an excessive number of libraries.
You can add several storage locations to one library.

baroquedub · March 31, 2023, 1:22pm

Ah, ok! Thanks for the clarification. I had totally misunderstood.

system · June 29, 2023, 1:23pm

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Does the TV Shows library really have to be one directory deep?

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