I have a bunch of audiobooks that I want to serve out of my Plex server, rather than have on my desktop computer.
A lot of my audiobooks have 2 or more files per audiobook. Right now, I have everything in one directory. I would like to know what the recommended filesystem and file configuration would be so that I can have all files that are for one book are compiled together.
Ideally, I would also like to be able to set it up so that all books in a particular series are in the same “folder” like how seasons of a TV show are listed under the TV show heading.
Can someone recommend how I should reconfigure my Plex library and my file system to do this?
Plex doesn’t really do audio books all that well. We have been asking for it for years.
I have mine in folders by Author. You kind of gave to treat them like music albums with the author as the band name.
So my metadata has the author as album artist and artist. Album name is the book name.
Plex will only keep track of where you are in a given file. If your books have multiple files (like mine) you will have to keep up with which file you were on.
A work around if you have an iPhone is an app called Prologue. It is a great app that does a lot of what you need to listen to audio books on Plex. You log into your plex server in Prologue just like the plex app but it is designed for audio books.
To begin with, I’ll tell you that Plex isn’t an ideal platform for audiobooks, especially if you have more than one file per book (as mine are).
As far as Plex will support audiobooks, you should set the library up as a Music library, and follow the same steps and requirements (including not having all your files in a single flat folder) that you would for that type of library. I use the following structure:
The one feature that specifically benefits audiobooks (aside from the configuration of the Audiobooks agent in server settings) is the ‘Store track progress’ setting in the Advanced Settings page of the Library editor.
So I set up the author in a folder, and set up his/her book in a nested folder. What do I name the individual files files in the book folder? (Some audiobooks are on 26 MP3 discs!) In movies with multiple parts, I use [Film name].p1, etc. What should I entitle each file to keep it in sequence? Some Internet columns says I should use third-party tagging software such as NCH’s Stamp ID3 Tag Editor to set up my audio book files, Then there’s yet another program called a “scraper” that, as far as I understand, grabs the tagged files and sets them up to listening including artwork, etc. (Sigh) Is there a simple way to do this???
Are you using a Mac or Windows in order to tag your files?
I’m on Mac, and I’ve found an app called Audiobook Builder 2 Mac app store link) that is very, VERY helpful in converting from MP3 files to m4b (audiobook) files. It allows me to merge a bunch of MP3 files, make them tagged and titled chapters, add author and cover info, and merge them into fewer M4B audiobook files.
That’s letting me easily tag and convert in just one “step.” I think I paid like $11.00 for the app, but there is also Audiobook Binder which also does most of the same things for free.
Like others have said, I’m in the process of recreating my audiobook library by author > series > books and naming the individual files [series part] - [book title][part of book #]
If you’re looking for a good tag editor, there is KID3 Tag Editor which is free, open source and I think is available for Windows, BSD, Mac, and others.
