[Feature request] I would like a feature to move, separate, combine, or split libraries in Plex via a wizard

Feature Suggestions
1

Reasoning: As my Plex library grows I would like the ability to rearrange the contents via a wizard that is easy and keeps all of the custom settings that have accumulated in the database for these items (what’s been watched, custom posters, collections, sort titles, and items I had to manually match).

Example: I originally created a library called ‘DVD Movies’ and put all of my DVD movie stuff in this one library, but now I would like to have an additional library called ’ DVD Animated/Cartoons’ to separate the live action stuff from the cartoons. The original library contains a lot of animated/cartoon items, many of which I changed the posters for and a lot of them are in collections or have had their sort title edited to put them in the correct order.

At the completion of this process I would like to have the following two libraries:

DVD Movies - (All of my existing live action movies with all of their edits and Metadata)

DVD Animated/Cartoons - (All of my moved animated/cartoon movies with all of their existing edits and Metadata)

To date I have failed to successfully relocate items without losing the information I have manually added.

Steps I tried: (from link: Move Media Content to a New Location | Plex Support)

Turned off “Empty trash automatically”

Stopped Plex Media Server on the NAS

Create new folder on storage (NAS) [Ex. \PlexMedia\Movies\DVD Animated-Cartoons]

Copy items from original folder to new folder location

Started Plex Media Server on the NAS

Updated existing library to Add new folder with copied contents (Now shows both old and new locations)

Click Save Changes

Wait for Plex to finish all activity

Perform Scan Library Files on the Plex Media Server level (just in case)

Wait for Plex to finish

Face Palm because… There is now two of everything, but the posters do not match, items are not in the collections I setup in the original library, and Sort Titles I added were not duplicated. In other words, I have to do all of the manual work all over again or just remove what I’ve done above and leave everything in the original library

I even tried creating a new Library and pointing it to the same folder as an existing library, but still the posters do not match, nothing is already in a collection, and sort orders are missing.

What am I missing? Links would be appreciated if you are going to direct me to a different location to accomplish this task.

I consider myself fairly technical in that I’ve been a computer geek, gaming nerd, repaired the little black boxes from airplanes, and worked in Information Technology (Desktop Support, System Administration, and Network Engineering). However, I’m just not getting this… Lol

2

I like this idea, something like the way Steam moves between libraries would be ideal. I’m actually personally looking into just moving a series or two between volumes that are in the same library and feel like I will end up with a whole bunch of “recently added” and all play stats reset if I do this.

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3

I really need this too. I need to MERGE my two movie libraries.
Adding the path of library TWO to library ONE did not work. A lot of issues, hundreds of not identified movies and no edited metadata came.

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4

I’m just waiting for this feature to decide to use PLEX instead of Kodi and then pay the Plex Pass to better manage colors in HDR.

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5

Have you tried to copy the item to the new folder/library,
Wait till Plex see’s the item in both places,
than remove the original item from it’s folder,
and then delete from Plex the missing item.

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6

Does not work. Tried this method during this week with NO success.
I add the entire folder of the library2 to the library1. Plex ignore all the information that it already have and scan the entire folder again, bringing wrong titles and not identifying a lot of itens, exactly how it did when I started using plex.

7

I recently did this myself - moving items to new folders - and it worked as expected but the steps @Muhchicken mentioned have adding the folder to the library in the wrong place. You want to add the folder to the library before moving stuff to it. Then once it’s moved to it, scan again, and then you can remove the old folder location.

Be sure to stop the server as well. In testing, I left it on and it saw moved items as new items (of course). If you are copying and not moving it’s less of a concern because it’ll see duplicates that will “clean up” later.

8

I do it all the time… works every time like a charm…
I’m updating my video files…

9

Guys, you are talking about moving files which stay in the same library to a different storage location.
This feature request is about moving items into a different library, not a different folder in storage.

4 Likes
10

Op stated they had issues with relocating any files including within the same library … the majority of the topic post are the steps they went through and problems they had with adding a new folder to an existing library despite the request being about moving to a new library. I think that “poisoned the well” for the discussion.

@Muhchicken … maybe remove the issues you had with adding a folder to a library since that’s different from creating a new library?

11

I dont want to move anything, files, phisically. I just want to MERGE two huge libraries to be treated as a single one. Then I could select an actor and all movies will return from that actor, not only movies in the same library.

These libraries are in LARGE HDs and I dont even have space to make this phisically, and it will ruin the other links I have in other programs like Kodi.

I have library-A, with “Great Movie”, “Good Movie” and “Astonishing”.
I have library-B, with “Kids Movie”, “Funny Show”, and “Fun with Sesamo”.

I want to merge these two libraries without rescan everything (causing a lot of problems like dozens of files not recognized, recognized wrongly, etc) and keeping the WATCHED status (date of adding and date of watched wasnt relevant to me)

I try to add the library-B folder to library-A folders, but it rescan everything wrong, does not use the same information already setled in library-B library

In my test, library-A returns “Great Movie”, “Good Movie”, “Astonishing”, “Kids Movie”, “Funny.Show.Movie.Compelte.mkv” (correct movie but funny name) and “Funny Saints of Sesamus” (wrong correspondence).

12

I wasn’t actually responding to you specifically - I was reponding to the topic itself and pointing out OPs steps to move files was out of order and that might be why that particular situation failed.

The request to manage library splits\moves\merges (not just file moves) is an interesting one. I could see it being useful. You, @marcioscheibel, might dig around though as many folks have started using single libraries vs multiple libraries as Plex features have made that less necessary for some instances and they might have found solutions or suggestions for how they merged those libraries together.

13

Go look at the link I tagged in my description and you will see I followed the steps exactly for “Moving Content to a New Location”. If you see where I got a step out of order from that original post, please respond and let me know which steps I got out of order. See this…
(from link: Move Media Content to a New Location | Plex Support)

I’m not the best at writing or describing what I want others to get from my posts, so I’m sorry if this is confusing.

My point with this thread is that there needs to be a way to accomplish moving content around in the Plex library without losing metadata and edits you had to manually make for whatever reason. This is not a guide on how to complete any tasks, this is a post asking for a feature. If anyone needs to accomplish a task that seems to be covered here, they need to follow the original guidance I linked in my original post. And, if anyone finds a different post that describes what I’m trying to accomplish, I would appreciate it if they posted back here to let me know.

Since I posted this I created a new Movies group in my Plex library that includes all of the different locations where I store content. Now as I add things to the library I just scan at the root of the library and wait for it to be added everywhere. From there I can check to make sure Plex identified it correctly in each Library and then I can change posters, sort order, and other data in each location as required.

I have learned a lot about Plex since I posted this and now at least 99% of what I add gets added correctly on the first try. If it does not, I don’t manually match it unless that is the last resort. Plex has got a lot better at matching things now than when I first started. The newer agents are amazing! However, sort order and posters are another issue altogether. Those have to be manually adjusted frequently. And, that’s the reason for this “Feature Request”. I would like for Plex to have the option to Merge, Separate, and Relocate content with a Wizard within the application so I don’t have to stop, create, copy, start, scan, remove, update, and then manually edit all of that crap all over again. I mean, it’s 2021 and Plex already has all of the manually entered information in the database. Why can’t that information be used to move stuff around?

14

These steps don’t apply when you move items to a different library, but only when you move your files from one storage volume or folder to another – while they are staying within the same library.

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15

No accusation that you did anything wrong. I just found that adding the folder before moving the content worked more reliably for me when changing the location of files in my existing library.

I got the tip from some other posts about moving files.

I agree it’d be nice to have some additional library management options in Plex but my personal experience is that limiting the number of different libraries is easier to manage overall (collections - smart and regular, custom hubs, built in filters, labels, tags, etc). I think a lot of the reasons folks had multiple libraries has been accounted for now with Plex features and some of the features work best with the expectations that a single library per media type is being used.

Just my personal experience… options are nice to have too. :metal:

16

im not entirely sure how helpful this will be. Moving Folders around on the same drive appears to break matches etc. I would say customization not being preserved is more of a bug than a feature request, even if the files are de-identified and then re-identified (i will look deeper into this after badly needed sleep)

If you want to centralize your library you may want to look into symbolic links and sshfs. These are essentially virtual folders pointing to another location. As far as plex is concerned its just a local folder on your hardrive. Which you can then add as a second folder for the same library ie tv

You can set up a folder structure like this:


 plex\                      <--- Main folder to organize
 plex\tv                    <--- virtual directory for hard drive 2
 plex\big_tv                <--- virtual directory for hard drive 3
 plex\single_tv_episodes    <--- virtual directory for hard drive 4
 plex\movies                <--- virtual directory for hard drive 5
 plex\big_movies            <--- virtual directory for hard drive 6

Then click on the spanner, for settings.
Then under management, click libraries then edit library then add folders

if plex will forgive an external link here is how on windows (if not let me know and ill write it up)

on linux your looking for ln -s /path/to/remote/directory /path/to/local/directory for a symbolic link

sshfs is for when you are creating a virtual directory for remote computers/servers instead of linking between hardrives. This will not work for things like torrents. File fragmentation will be to intense for it. Will be fine for streaming 4k for lots of people (bandwidth depending) will make starting/seeking a bit sluggish depending on latency (how far away server is)

Please take note these timeouts currently set most likely are way to aggressive. Also if ssh is updated/server rebooted link will need to be remounted.

This requires passwordless ssh keys
ssh-keygen

ssh-copy-id username@example.com

sshfs -o reconnect,ServerAliveInterval=15,ServerAliveCountMax=3,cache_timeout=3600 username@example.com:/path/to/remote/server/directory /path/to/local/server/directory

Apologies all for the half baked post, will edit and clean up when i wake up.

Edits before i sleep ^^
You can shut plex down. Move the files where you want them, then create a symbolic link from the old location. Plex will be none the wiser and if set up right will think the directory structure has not changed and the files are in the same location that they were. Not sure if plex needs a soft or a hard link, but 99% of the time a soft link works fine for everything else. Test with a single file before you commit with an entire library. Might even consider backing it all up, either by plex, or blackblaze. If you do backup and are on windows make sure to check %appdata% and see whats hiding in there, dont have a windows box

17

This does not join/merge two separate libraries.
I already add the folder to the first library, and it rescan and bring all data wrong again (lie in the very first time): wrong posters, wrong (or none at all) correspondencies…
PLEX just rescan everything again, when in another library. It does not use the same information EVEN if it was the same PATH added to another library

It only keeps information when it is ALREADY in the same library.

18

true, unfortunately it wont help there. I got nothing sorry. This needs to be fixed. After testing everything is retained when moving files around (so as long database cleanup has not being done) unless the files are moved into another library. It will spawn a new entry into the new library with generic metadata/customization/tags/collections etc. If you move the files back to the original library the customization will be restored. So its a bug. I have poked at this every way i can think of. Cant find a solution.

Sorry for hijacking your post a bit to try an help everyone else moving files around and preserve data i was so tired i was hallucinating with text drifting around the screen :slight_smile:

If anything it does show another major reason why this feature/bugfix is needed. Rebuilding a library is deeply painful especially when you are migrating over to virtual folders and trying to organize your underlying directory structure. That major windows 6 monthly update, and worse windows 11 upgrade have a very high probability of breaking your symbolic links but its been a while since i played with it.

Library management is an ongoing headache for both plex devs, and server admins, work is being done on it. We are grateful for anything that reduces the major pain points when sorting things out. Spliting/merging libarys, and files around inside plex makes alot of sense especially with its advanced filters, and as an option do mass rename the underlying files into more plex friendly structure that is scraped from metadata agents. There are 3rd party tools that do this, but that is also a big point of resistance for a lot of people they like their hashes, and they want to seed.

Collections are a very clunky way to do this, though gets unrealistic when things get big. (Manually having to sort out alphabetical order one by one, no letter jump list on the side) It is helpful putting movies for tv shows/ova back into the desired show. The tv agent sometimes wont populate the movie into the tv library. and there is no way to use .plexignore so that one library in particular will ignore this directory. So you cant put it in movies. Figuring out which tv shows have movies etc. Plex is becoming less fragile. requiring less bandaid solutions. Still has a long way to go though :frowning:

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19

I appreciate a lot your efforts. Hope this merge library could be done soon, its really sad because a lot of features can not be used well without it (I click on an actor, and it returns only the movies from that library, and thats a lot ann oying and frustrating)

20

Thank you very much for taking the time to post all of this and help out the community. You have explained in way more detail than I did for what needs to be fixed and I really appreciate it. Hopefully the Devs will be able to take a look at my feature request and all of the insight you have provided to come up wiuth a way to create this wizard we are looking for. Anyway, thanks for your contribution! :+1: