I’m trying to get Plex to ignore a particular show (Doctor Who [1967]) that I have stored in my TV directory, but no .plexignore file I try works and I can’t figure out why! Is it impossible to ask Plex to ignore specific folders like that? My assumption is no, because it sounds like an available feature, but it also seems like this is more designed to ignore specific file types and not directories.
The code I’ve been trying looks like this;
# Ignore directories called “Doctor Who (1967)”
Doctor Who (1967)/*
…and I’ve put it in several different root directories to see if that was the problem, but it still shows up on my server. The file is a .txt and is called exactly .plexignore.
If anybody could give me a layman’s tutorial on how to use this feature I’d be incredibly grateful. It’s a skill I’d love to add to my repertoire.
Second, apologies, I’m not a Dr Who fan, so, my presumption of using the word and library “TV show” below may be incorrect.
If it was a movie, replace my ‘show’ with ‘movie’
Admittedly, The plexignore feature seems complicated, but, it’s indeed a rich tip to know.
(In review of your post, I think #1 is your issue - Double click your file in explorer - if it immediately opens in Notepad, that is your issue.)
Are you sure your filename isn’t “.plexignore.txt” ?
If using Windows, it’s tricky when making files, as Windows by default hides file extensions.
You mention it’s a .txt file, as though when you right click the file and look at properties, it states it is a filetype “.txt” literally.
If that’s the case, you’ll need to enable(place checkmark in) “File name extensions” in the File Explorer/View/Show-Hide menu bar" area when looking at that folder. Right clicking the plexignore file, properties, should show.
Reference my test files here, one’s named properly, one’s a .txt file. With HIdden extensions though, difficult to get renamed properly.
Additionally, I just found out, when you have file extensions showing, Windows 10 WILL NOT just let you rename a file to .anything because it wants a filename. (I hate how Microsoft tries to make everything user proof, but leaves out techs who are indeed sure we want to do something the way we are doing it). So, for THAT work around, open your .plexignore.txt file (likely in notepad), use File/Save As, change the TYPE to All Files, then rename the file being saved to .plexignore - you can then save the file where you need it (see my other comments below), and delete the .plexignore.txt file
As for where the file is put:
If you have X:\shows as your root library path for TV, the location X:\shows\.plexignore should work, if the folder appears as X:\shows\Doctor Who (1967)
Ignore directories called “Doctor Who (1967)”
Doctor Who (1967)/*
Things totally change though if you have X:\Shows\DrWho\lots of DrWho folders here including one you're trying to ignore
I’d have to do more tinkering, but placing the .plexignore in root with below MIGHT work.
# Ignore directories called “Doctor Who (1967)”
DrWho/Doctor Who (1967)/*
I fixed the problem by going into the file’s properties and deleting .txt from the end of the filename. Even though the box was checked to hide the file extension, apparently that wasn’t enough.
Besides that though, your post was really helpful and I’ll definitely be referring back to it in the future when I’m using this function instead of the Plex Support article.
Just adding a quick note about why hiding file extensions did not do solve the problem. This is for more anyone else who comes along later, since this is still one of the top results for Google searches for plexignore.
Hiding the file extension on Mac (or Windows) does not actually remove the extension from the file. All it does is hide the extension from the file names when you view them in Finder (or File Explorer). The .txt, .mkv, .docx, etc. are still part of the file name, only you won’t see them listed. If you want to verify a file’s extension, you should probably not hide file extensions. That way you’ll know if a file has an extension or not.
