Problem: Some of my libraries are very large. I have tens of thousands of photos, for example. I’ve had to break these into decades to keep the library sizes down, but even then scanning one takes a very looooong time.
I have similarly had to break my movie, music, and TV libraries up by genre, and have quite a few of them. Even then, some genres are quite large and take a very long time to scan. I’ve had to disable periodic scans, but even then when I add an item it can take a very long time. I moved a video an hour ago and it is still scanning the library.
Proposal: It would be very helpful if I could “lock” an item, library, or folder to indicate that it is no longer changing and shouldn’t be re-scanned.
Examples:
- I don’t need “The Wizard of Oz” to be scanned again and again - it’s not 1939 any more, the video isn’t changing. In the unlikely event I change some of the art or something in its folder, or move it, or add another resolution, I could manually select it to be scanned or unlock it. So if I scan the library of “fantasy” films, it could be skipped to make the scan go faster.
- I’m not adding photos to my 1970s photo library on a daily basis. I could “lock” it and it could be skipped in automatic scans to make them go faster.
- If I am no longer adding anything to d:\video\homevideos and am now only adding them to e:\video\homevideos I could “lock” the former folder within its library and it could be ignored for scans.
- If I do change something that’s locked I could manually have it re-scanned. For example, if I moved The Wizard Of Oz from d:\video\fantasy to e:\video\fantasy I could either right click it in the library and select “scan metadata” or I could right click it and select “unlock”, then scan the library, then right click the video and select “lock” when it’s done.
The “lock” feature could be implemented on the individual item, folder, or library level. Locking a higher level (Library>folder>item) thing could be implemented by simply locking the things it contains, so “unlocking” such a thing could simply unlock the things it contains. (Thus, if I had locked some movies within a library, couldn’t remember which, but wanted them all unlocked, for example if I was moving things around on disc, I could just select “unlock” on the library and it would unlock them.)
The general concept here is that most Plex users add content and then leave it - they aren’t constantly changing the stuff in their content. (A movie doesn’t often change once you get it on video.) So the re-scans of libraries waste a lot of time re-scanning stuff that hasn’t changed and won’t. There are some obvious exceptions, such as TV libraries of people using the DVR features, and so those libraries could be left unlocked.
