File Naming

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Server Version#: Version 1.13.8.5395
Player Version#: Web Client Version 3.81.1

How would I get everything to display properly with:

Example: 2001 A Space Odyssey (with Movie Extras)

/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 1/2001 The Making Of A Myth.eng.idx
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 1/2001 The Making Of A Myth.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 1/2001 The Making Of A Myth.eng.sub
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 2/Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick.eng.idx
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 2/Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 2/Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick.eng.sub
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 3/Vision of a Future Passed the Prophecy.eng.idx
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 3/Vision of a Future Passed the Prophecy.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 3/Vision of a Future Passed the Prophecy.eng.sub
…
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/Featurettes/Extras 8/Kubrick Interview by Jeremy Bernstein.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)-1080p.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)-SD.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).eng.idx
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).eng.sub
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).spa.sub

Note that there are multiple versions, which requires use of the hyphen format, but there are extension files with subtitles of their own, which requires use of the subfolder format.

Additionally, given the above example, is there any safe method of keeping metadata within filename?

Example: 2001 A Space Odyssey (with 1080p AND SD)

…
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)-1080p [1080p.DD5.1-LPCM5.1.x264].mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)-SD.mkv
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).eng.idx
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).eng.sub
/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).spa.sub

Finally, again given the initial example, is there any safe method of putting the date at the beginning of the top-level directory for each movie?

Example: 2001 A Space Odyssey (with alternate directory name)

…
/(1968) 2001 A Space Odyssey/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)-1080p.mkv
/(1968) 2001 A Space Odyssey/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968)-SD.mkv
/(1968) 2001 A Space Odyssey/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).eng.idx
/(1968) 2001 A Space Odyssey/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).eng.sub
/(1968) 2001 A Space Odyssey/2001 A Space Odyssey (1968).spa.sub

In this case, the top-level folder name does not match the film file name.

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How about…

Movies ← your top-level folder connected to the movies library
.. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) ← the movie folder
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Theatrical [1080p].mkv ← video for the theatrical version
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Theatrical [SD].mkv ← video for the theatrical version in SD
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director's Cut.mkv ← video for the dc
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director's Cut.en.srt ← DC subtitle
.. .. / cover.jpg ← the movie poster
.. .. / The Big Interview-interview.ext ← inline LMA of type “interview”
.. .. / Making-of-featurette.ext ← inline LMA of type “featurette”
.. .. / Deleted Scenes ← LMA subfolder
.. .. .. / 1. Scene A.ext
.. .. .. / 2. Scene B.ext
.. .. .. / ...

Plex does not differentiate different editions of the same movie – they’re by default treated like different versions (as in different quality versions) of the same movie.
You can split those movies inside Plex after importing/matching them.
Remark: You can vote here if you want a better handling of multiple cuts etc.: [Implemented] - Multiple Cuts Of Movie

None of the above examples really depend on one format or another (folder vs. hyphen approach). In theory you can put all your movies incl. their extras and subtitles in the same central movies folder.
There’s some restrictions, e.g. when it comes to the naming of your extras. Hence personally I prefer giving each movie its own folder as well as 1 subfolder for each local media asset type.
Any additional information should be put in square brackets so they will be ignored by Plex. Otherwise you risk ending up with even messier data.

I’m not quite sure what you want to achieve with your 3rd example.
Do you want to distinguish your different versions on folder level?

Movies
.. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Theatrical ← folder for theatrical version
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Theatrical [1080p].ext
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Theatrical [SD].ext
.. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director's Cut ← folder for the DC
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director's Cut [4K].ext
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director's Cut [1080p].ext
.. .. / 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Director's Cut [SD].ext

??
I haven’t been doing this for some time… from experience, Plex will still merge them as the movie scanner recognizes the files as belonging to the same movie. So not much of a gain here…

1 Like
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I am just converting my media libraries to Plex.
I didn’t have just a long dump of files or subfolders in a Movies folder.

For example:

media/movies/0. Live Action
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors/Kubrick
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors/Kubrick/[1964] Dr. Strangelove
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors/Kubrick/[1968] 2001 A Space Odyssey
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors/Kubrick/[1980] The Shining
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors/Hitchcock
media/movies/0. Live Action/0. Directors/Lynch
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades/1940
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades/1950
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades/1960
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades/1960/[1961] Last Year at Marienbad
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades/1960/[1963] Eight and a Half
media/movies/0. Live Action/1. Decades/1960/[1966] Blow-Up
media/movies/1. Animated
media/movies/1. Animated/0. Directors
media/movies/1. Animated/1. Decades/

I hope to be able to keep the date first in at least the subfolder titles,
such that file explorers continue to sort films by order of release.

It seems inane with the limited listings in the example given,
but assume there are numerous additional film listings in each category.

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The Plex documentation is vague regarding whether the examples are
hard-coded syntax (which specific Plex features require to function correctly) or
guidelines for people who don’t have much experience organizing files.

Regarding my first and third examples, respectively:

Do film files need to be named starting with `Title (Year)` exactly?

Could film files be titled Title [Year] or (Year) Title,
without breaking any Plex Analyze/Metadata functions?

Do film files need to be placed in a folder starting with `Title (Year)` exactly?

Could film folders be titled Title [Year] or (Year) Title,
without breaking any Plex Analyze/Metadata functions?

And if so, do film files directories and film files require the same prefix -
if a film folder is titled [Year] Title,
do film and subtitle files need to start with [Year] Title exactly?

Ultimately, I’d like to leave the [Year] Title format in use,
at the very least for subfolder naming.

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Regarding my second example,
I would like to leave metadata in the film filenames.

Per your example, I believe I could use:

2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) - Theatrical [1080p.DD5.1-LPCM5.1.x264].mkv

In other words:

• Is use of [ and ] limited to specific keywords such as [1080p]? (I assume no.)
• Will the extra text in the filename confuse any Plex Analyze/Metadata functions?

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Regarding your example here:

./Deleted Scenes
./Deleted Scenes/1. Scene A.mkv
./Deleted Scenes/2. Scene B.mkv

Since some of my Local Media Assets (LMA) consist of multiple files,
I isolate them to subfolders also:

./Deleted Scenes
./Deleted Scenes/1. Scene A/1. Scene A.mkv
./Deleted Scenes/1. Scene A/1. Scene A.eng.sub
./Deleted Scenes/1. Scene A/1. Scene A.eng.idx
./Deleted Scenes/2. Scene B/2. Scene B.mkv
./Deleted Scenes/2. Scene B/2. Scene B.eng.sub
./Deleted Scenes/2. Scene B/2. Scene B.eng.idx

Plex however does not find/see these files in this format.
Is there a method to use subfolders with LMA?

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P.S:

This was all super informative and answered other questions I had.
Thank you for taking the time : j

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That’s a long post… I hope I don’t miss any questions :wink:

Plex is super strict when it comes to the naming of TV Shows. When it comes to those, no extra folder levels or deviations from the naming conventions are allowed. For movies, Plex is more resilient/flexible.

Some considerations

You should be fine to keep your folder structure like this. Things will only get tricky if you have hard or soft links to the same movie in every category (e.g. “2001: A Space Odyssey” being listed in Directors > Kubrick as well as Decades > 1960). If they are, Plex will recognize them as multiple versions of the same movie!

Using a leading year (in square brackets) should not disturb Plex – however you might want to consider adding the release year as part of the folder / file names as well (in regular brackets) – this way you increase the quality of Plex’ matching process and avoid wrong matches of same-named movies (e.g. 2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968) > 2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968).ext).

If by “file explorers” your main focus is on DLNA clients… if you use the DLNA server built into Plex, Plex will automatically show subfolders based on its metadata (e.g. By Decade, By Year, By Rating…).

Further Questions

1. Square Brackets

Whatever you put in square brackets is being ignored.

2. Folder/File names

The movie name (+year) part of a movie folder and file should be the same. That being said… Plex will ignore any name segments in square brackets (see above) – so you should be ok to keep those structures.

3. Local Media Asset subfolders

Plex does not consider additional subfolders within a LMA subfolder.
If an item has additional elements (e.g. subtitles), just put them all in the LMA folder.

... > Deleted Scenes
.. > 1. Scene A.mkv ← the LMA video file
.. > 1. Scene A.eng.srt ← an English language SRT subtitle for 1. Scene A.mkv
.. > 1. Scene A.eng.idx ← an English language IDX subtitle for 1. Scene A.mkv
.. > 1. Scene A.eng.forced.srt ← a forced English language SRT subtitle for 1. Scene A.mkv

Remark

Keep in mind… the closer you stick with the naming schema as recommended by Plex, the lower the risk you run into any problems. If you’ll mainly use your media through Plex, don’t bother with a too complex folder structure… Plex is providing built-in filtering functionality to show movies by Year, Decade, Genre, Content Rating, Collection, Director, Actor, Writer, Producer, Country of Origin, Studio, Resolution, Audio Language, Subtitle Language`…
So unless you use to browse your movies in a file explorer a lot, I recommend to skip this level of extra organization.

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Is that a hard-coded syntax?
Does Plex ignore any text in filenames listed in square brackets?
(If so, are there any other hard-coded syntax rules to know about?)

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(For film only):
Are you suggesting keeping the square bracket year (for my non-Plex file explorer use) but adding the regular bracket year for Plex use, effectively doubling up? (If so, does that need to happen at the subfolder title, or also at the files level):

       2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968) >        2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968).ext
[1968] 2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968) >        2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968).ext
[1968] 2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968) > [1968] 2001 - A Space Odyssey (1968).ext

(The extra white space is only for visual purposes regarding what was added.)

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Nope - I’m mostly speaking with reference to reviewing raw data files outside of Plex over command line interface (CLI) or file transfer protocol (FTP) GUIs.

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Noted. I was considering doing this. Thanks for the heads up.

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How am I going to organize the deleted scenes to my interviews! :joy:

(More seriously: Noted and thanks.)

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