How important is folder structure for music?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 1.19.1.2701
Player Version#: web 4.32.1

How important is folder structure for music? I’d rather reorganize and follow Plex’s recommendation now.

My setup is as follows, since I used to only put high bit rate on a separate device:

/Music
   /lossless
      /classical
         /artist - album
             /01 - track name
             /02 - track name
      /jazz
      /mainstream
   /lossless high bitrate
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream
   /lossless surround
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream
2

Structure is important

To create music libraries, presuming all your groupings follow the same structure,

creating library sections which reference:

Classical

  1. Music/lossless/classical
  2. Music/lossless high bitrate
  3. Music/lossless surround

Would work correctly as each TLD has Artist - Album/Track underneath it.

1 Like
3

if you change it to

/Music
   /lossless
      /classical
         /artist/
             /album
                 /01 - track name
                 /02 - track name
      /jazz
      /mainstream
   /lossless high bitrate
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream
   /lossless surround
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream

it should work, I have mine in a similar manner

../audio/ext/firstletteralbumartist/albumartist/year - album/track# - artist - title

/databackup/media/audio/MP3/0-9/+44/2006 - When Your Heart Stops Beating [MP3]/01 - +44 - Lycanthrope.mp3

audio is the music library root path

4

Thanks for the responses. I’m going through and editing/cleaning up ID3 as well.
So the most important thing is to follow the artist/album/## - track name format?
What if I have the same artist in multiple locations?

/Music
   /lossless
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream
         /U2/
             /War
                 /01 - track name
                 /02 - track name
   /lossless high bitrate
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream
         /U2/
             /War
                 /01 - track name
                 /02 - track name
   /lossless surround
      /classical
      /jazz
      /mainstream
5

I have the same artists in multiple locations, and it seems to work ‘ok’, that is not to say there may not be issues, especially in the cases of ‘singles’ or other random tracks with no attached album/track#.

But it should work for the most part.

I have the music library option ‘prefer local metadata’ enabled, so I keep my tags sometimes non-standard album names, etc.

The biggest issues, IMO, are

  • plex insists only only using various/various artists for compilations (I have/had ‘soundtrack’ as the album artists for my soundtracks, and some other ‘collections’ like time-life, or vh-1 albums I used as album artists to keep those albums grouped together. which causes all kinds of problems)
  • plex ‘removes’ the track artists from the tracks display (it makes the track artist the album artist) except for the ‘various’ artists albums, which do display the track artists
  • plex does not import any ratings tags, so your library will be unrated
1 Like
6

If I’m using ‘prefer local metadata’, does folder structure matter for Plex? Why does folder structure matter for Plex?

7

yes.
because plex is plex.

1 Like
8

Does the dash matter? I know Plex wants

01 - Song Name.flac.

Have you noticed any issues with naming without the dashes?

Just curious.

9

If all other naming structure is perfect, you can get away with

01. track name.ext

It must be otherwise clean.

The software expects specific structure.

10

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