I’ve been running my Plex Media Server for years, but when I first started using it, I really didn’t understand how things worked. I have several hundred movies where I didn’t include the year. I just used the movie name. For example, the filename for the movie “2 Guns” is simply 2 Guns.mp4 instead of 2 Guns (2013).mp4.
I know I can rename the file, delete it from Plex and then rescan. Is there any way around doing this manually for several hundred files?
Thanks in advance.
You could checkout apps like Filebot.
btw – if you fix the names, you shouldn’t necessarily need to delete them before re-scanning your library. Most of the time, a re-scan should do (e.g. because Plex remembers the file by other characteristics like file size + its “fingerprint”).
Thanks for the info. I’ll check Filebot out.
As long as the files are correctly recognized in your Plex library, there is no need to rename them.
Because if you do, (particularly if you not only change their file name, but also their folder name), it can happen that Plex will treat it as a new addition to the library. Thus listing it among the newly added items, re-processing for trailer detection, resetting metadata/poster to defaults.
I’d only try to clean up if there is a pending action, which would cause the above effects anyway. Like moving server machines, or a general reorganization of your media. Or maybe after you’ve lost the server database due to some hardware defect.
This has been my experience in the past, and you’re correct. Renaming the files with the date isn’t worth the downside. I was hoping someone might have a viable work around, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. I just invested in five new 18TB Ironwolf Pro drives and a new NAS. With 2.5M hours MTBF & a little luck, I shouldn’t have to worry about rebuilding Plex for awhile. Thanks for the info.
There is this, but it’s more suitable to renaming top level folders, or moving media around to other drives/file servers: [HowTo] Plex database modification - Moving media the right/wrong way - #10 by jelwell
There is.
Get Filebot as previously suggested (it’s worth it, trust me). Then use it to COPY (not move) your current library to the new file system but using a new naming scheme. With movies and shows, I recommend that you not only include the release year (for a show, the release of the series, not individual episodes), but also include a hash value (CRC32). This way if you wind up with multiple copies of the same content, but different sizes or quality, they won’t clash by having the same name.
With Plex seeing the media in both the old AND new locations, it will merge them within the library. Then after that has been done, you remove the original files and Plex will remove the old matches from the library while retaining all the relevant information.
I’ve made some posts on the Filebot forums, so I can help you there with naming formats if you like.
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