How do I organize my TV shows?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

I saw a topic from three years ago about nested folders but nothing was said since so I wanted to ask - I have around 40-50 comedies and the same number of drama TV series. I do NOT want to create a library for each one, but I’d like to organize them the same way I have on my disk:

TV Shows - Comedies - Bob Newhart
TV Shows - Comedies - Cheers
etc.
TV Shows - Drama - ER
TV Shows - Drama - Quantum Leap
etc.

This way when we want to see a comedy (or a SF/Fantasy) we can navigate to the folder where we could have multiple shows. Is this possible?

2

Best place to start is this guide. If you have any questions or confusion, bring them to the forum.

3

Yeah, I understand that guide for TV shows, but it still means each type of show is in its own library.

What I want is for ONE library to all TV shows. But it would show all the types when selected. And I could select comedies or dramas or whatever. Then when I select TV Shows-Comedies it will then show me only the comedies (and I can drill down further into the show and the seasons). How do I set that up?

4

Long story short: no, you cannot do that in Plex. While looking at folders, Plex isn’t organizing your content based on folders.

Even if you put all that stuff in a single library you could still filter it by genre or certain actors. If you want a more simplistic view you can still organize your “major categories” as collections.

5

Not necessarily. When you configure your TV shows library, on the “Add Folders” tab you would add each of your genre folders (you can add multiple). Using your examples, you would include the following paths:

TV Shows\Comedies\
TV Shows\Drama\
TV Shows\SF Fantasy\
... And so on

The important thing is that you should not have any additional nesting beneath that. So, using your examples, series should be organized like

TV Shows\
     Comedies\   <--- Add this path to your library
          The Bob Newhart Show\
               Season 01\
                    The Bob Newhart Show - S01E01.ext
     Drama\      <--- Also add this path to your library
          Quantum Leap\
               Season 01\
                    Quantum Leap - S01E01.ext

Once the library is configured, if you want to view/browse by genre, you have multiple options:

  • View the library in library view filter by genre.
  • View the library in folder view and navigate to the desired folder.
  • Create and use collections, as @tom80H suggested.
6

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