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Hi,
basically, the title.
I don’t think I care about any quality of life things that Plex can do when I follow the naming convention. And I explicitly do not want to rename any files - some of them are downloaded from torrents and I want to seed them.
I’d be happy to see in the Plex interface just all my video files in alphabetical order. I’d prefer to manually rename them in Plex library and organize them in playlists as needed.
No problem. Just put all files in an Other Video Library type rather than a TV Show or Movie Library.
I have exactly this library type, and Plex Video Files Scanner as my scanner. And still, in some folders Plex finds only one video file, the first one.
Agent = Personal Media ?
This agent, and option to split apart files that Plex decided are the versions of the same file, helped. Thanks!
That’s why naming them correctly helps.
So you’re asking if Plex can show you all the files in a way that keeps them organized so that you can then rename them in the Plex library…
… but you don’t want to first give Plex the information it needs to keep them organized for you, by renaming them on your computer?
I think the “magic mind reading” feature is still a few releases away.
No, I don’t want Plex to organize my files in any way. I want it to show them just as they are on disk, without any “smarts” whatsoever, and do all organization manually. You have misunderstood something.
“I’d be happy to see in the Plex interface just all my video files in alphabetical order.”
This is exactly what I referred to when I said you’re asking Plex to show you all the files in a way that keeps them organized. I didn’t think you said you wanted Plex to organize them.
My point is, Plex needs specific information in order to show your files on it’s interface. If the names of those files don’t contain the information Plex needs then it cannot show you the files that you’d like to see. This is why there is such a thing as a Naming Convention which explains how files need to be named in order to be recognized by Plex.
If all you want is an alphabetical list of file names - why use Plex at all? Why not just use a file browser?
“why use Plex at all? Why not just use a file browser?”
Mostly to access my media library on an Apple TV with a pleasant interface.
I’ll admit it’s difficult to understand why people want to use Plex this way when there are very good tools available to name files correctly. Filebot, Sonarr and Radarr work great.
The way Plex is used by others shouldn’t really matter to us though.
There are two main representations for file based data: physical and logical.
A file browser shows you the physical representation of your directories and files. Plex does not. Not really. Plex is a sort of uber-wrapper and has it’s own distinct logical view of all the media. It works best when you understand that and work with it.
Lots of people get into perpetual trouble by trying to use plex as if it’s a file browser with a purely disk based view of the media. The result is usually less than optimal.
Torrents are content addressable, aren’t they? As long as the files are unchanged, their hash remains the same; the names can be changed and the files will still seed the content to people who want those files. Torrent names can also be changed. Folder names within the torrent may not be changeable though, and you cannot move the contents of a folder out.
Nope, tried to rename - and torrent couldn’t start. That would be very convenient…
I assume you’re on windows?
Hard links work fine on windows. I’m using them to maintain two different sets of file structures representing a single set of actual files. In my case I rename/relink mp4 files to m4a files so that plex will pick them up (otherwise it ignores them).
Plex reads the hard links just fine. It requires some scripting though. I use 100% bash scripts on top of cygwin.
Nice method.
For example, this is how I might link a torrent file to make it readable by plex in a separate directory structure:
ln "m:/torrents/Father.Knows.Best.Season1.episode3.Junior.Loses.The.Screwdriver.mkv" \
"m:/plexdata/shows/Father Knows Best/Season 1/Father Knows Best - s01e03 - Junior Loses The Screwdriver.mkv"
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