I am moving my plex media files from the cloud to a local external HHD which is a 4 bay enclosure with 3 8TB drives in. I run the Plex Media Server from my Windows 11 PC which is attached to this enclosure and this isn’t being migrated or changed in anyway.
I have multiple libraries for various media including Films, TV Shows, Audiobooks, Radio Shows and Music. I have a lot of rare European arty cinema and I do mean arty not xxx stuff and when I was adding it originally I had to manually match a lot of it up even though my file structure is correct and plex did match the majority of the films.
Audiobooks was another issue in that I know plex isn’t really set up for that but i use the audiobook plugin and it works fine with a bit of tweaking. However if I have to sort out a lot of audiobooks again then it will take a very long time indeed.
I wanted to be able to point all the same meta data from the existing libraries to the new folder locations? Is this possible? I was advised before to just move the media files then add the new folder to the old library, rescan and then remove the old library but when I did a test of this I realised I would still have to go back in and manually match and fix all the films, audiobooks etc that Plex couldn’t find automatically.
What I really want is to be able to move the media files to a new location then to just point the exisiting metadata from the old library location to the new location so that I don’t need to match so many files again or have to re-add lots of audiobook pictures and info.
Is it possible to do this? On my current media file drive on the cloud it is mounted with rclone to my windows pc and the File location is for example X:Plex\Plex\Films The new location I am moving the files to will be J:Plex1\Films
Is it possible just swtich to the new location and not have to rematch films or metadata and just have the location change only?
Edit: This is basically a reply to your request in OttoKerner’s linked article on how to move media. I found the link on how to move media to a new location from the “supporting links” in that article.
Make sure to backup your database, in case anything bad happens and Plex cleared out the media metadata, you can restore to a good copy and try again.
Basically, what you need to do is
Disable “Empty trash automatically after every scan”, Under the Library menu in settings. This will ensure that if your content is every detected to be missing, Plex won’t simply delete the entry and all its metadata.
You need to either COPY your media to the new location (Copy is recommended, but I think a move might work too? If you feel adventurous, try a move, but COPY is the safest bet).
Once this is done, EditONE of your libraries, and add the new location of the media as another source. Allow Plex to scan the new location. If done right, there should be no “new” media added, as Plex notes that all media it found is a copy of media that already existed.
Verify this worked. To check, go to any video, and click the triple dot to get the Get Info option and click it. Verify that Plex lists two separate locations for the media (old location, new location). If so, that file is fine. If your library isn’t too large, consider checking each file, or just do a random sampling.
If you are satisfied, Edit the library again, and remove the old file location. Scan your library. Nothing should change, nothing should disappear or show up as “new” media. If this works, pat yourself on the back! It worked!
Repeat this process for each library you have. Play a few files here and there, check that there doesn’t appear to be any loss of data/metadata. Check that there isn’t a trash icon on any file (a sign that Plex did not find that particular file in the new location).
Once all your libraries are moved, don’t forget to re-enable automatic emptying of trash. This will most likely cause any trash icon media to disappear, but you checked to make sure there aren’t any of those back in step 6.
Thanks again to @Divideby0 and @OttoKerner I will see what I can do but it looks like I will just have to move the files and then rematch everything which will take a long time I think sadly. I am not confident to edit the databases without step by step instructions which are known to work and I am procrastinating even trying at this point. I wish plex had a a fix for this as it must be a fairly common issue.
