Server Version#: 4.145.1
Media files on 2 external HD’s
I attempted a server move from a 2014 Mac Mini to a 2025 one today. Followed the instructions exactly on the website to move the database over. On the first attempt, the server showed none of my content (not even the database/metadata info). I eventually deleted the app, deleted the database and plist files, and started over from scratch.
On a second attempt, the program opened and seemed to find the database. But attempts to scan the hard drives to remap the libraries weren’t relinking to the media files on the external hard drives. Eventually, after reading a comment on redit, I examined the external hard drives directly and it appears that somehow Plex completely erased the contents of all the scanned folders. They are completely empty.
Non scanned folders (one the drives at least had a backup of the media from 2022 and earlier) are intact. I’ll give a shot at a DIY recovery solution, but I fear I may have lost 2 years of content.
The “automatically empty trash” setting was off. I DID NOT click through any warnings about deletions.
Any idea what caused this? Any suggestions other than something like Disk Drill?
Plex won’t touch your media, unless you specifically configure it
to allow deleting media from the Plex user interface (and subsequently do so)
you configure a tv show library to only keep a certain amount of episodes / delete episodes you’ve watched after a certain amount of days (this feature was originally only available for DVR‘ed content)
This isn’t related to letting Plex empty its trash after scanning media. That option only applies to the library records („index cards“) representing your media inside Plex. Not the media itself.
As for how the media got deleted, I don’t have a good idea.
I realize its not supposed to. I’ve been on plex for 10 years or more I think, without issue. But all I know is before I unmounted those 2 hard drives from the 2014 mac mini, they had all my content. And then sometime after I swapped them over to the new mac, it all was erased. That is, when viewed with the finder, the folders are empty. When checked with “get info” there is no storage being used.
And it’s only the folders on them that plex was scanning.
You might have inadvertently removed the actual media files during this.
Likely if you selected “Delete” inside of Plex on the actual movie posters, instead of just on the libraries.
I do large volume data stuff all the time with astrophotography. Mac OS won’t even do that kind of delete without a warning. It’ll tell you that the files are “too large to recycle” and ask if you want them to just be deleted. I got none of that.
And I have checked the 2 drives on another mac, the folders are empty. And only the ones scanned by Plex.
