Importance of year in movie title

Plex Media Server
1

I’m migrating my media server from WHS11 with KODI to Unraid with Plex. All my files/folders for movies with Kodi just have the movie title and then a .nfo with movie data. The movie poster and wallpaper are in the folder along with the media file.

I see with Plex it is recommended to have the folder/file use the Movie (Year) naming structure. How important is this for the library? I have 2-300 movies so it would be a pain to add the year to my existing movie library but if it is needed I will do it. I will start doing this with new movies regardless.

Thanks.

2

It shouldn’t matter all that much for uniquely named movies – however you’ll be significantly better off to avoid future collisions or mismatches if you include the release year.

There’s apps that’ll help you renaming files / folders if needed; but 200-300 movies doesn’t sound all that bad :wink:

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Thanks. I am going to go through and update them manually. Better to do it now and not have issues in the future. Should I do both the movie file and the folder or do I need to do just one?

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Plex Docs → Your Media → Naming & Organizing Your Movie Files

The Plex documentation specifies both. At a minimum, put the year in the file name.

Some software to help with renaming:

Many people use Filebot. It is quite powerful and can rename an entire library in minutes.

Tiny Media Manager is also very useful, and free.

TMM Renamer Patterns:

  • Show Name: ${showTitle} (${showYear})
  • Season: Season ${seasonNr2}
  • Episode Name: ${showTitle} (${showYear}) s${seasonNr2}e${episodeNr2} ${episode.title}
  • Movie Name: ${title} (${year}) {imdb-${imdb}}

PowerRenamer in Microsoft Power Tools is helpful for simple renaming with pattern matches or regular expressions. It makes quick work of tasks such as adding a year to file names, removing undesirable text from multiple files, etc.

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