# Move Metadata for Ubuntu Plex **URL:** \ **Category:** Metadata & Adding Files\ **Tags:** server-linux\ **Created:** [November 30, 2025, 5:38am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020 "2025-11-30T05:38:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![drplexuser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@drplexuser](https://forums.plex.tv/u/drplexuser)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2025, 5:38am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/1 "2025-11-30T05:38:02Z")
Server Version#: 1.42.2.10156 Is there a way to move the metadata and thumbnails to another location for Ubuntu/Linux plex? It seems to be using up the whole drive. All my media is stored on a NAS that mapped so I like to do something similar with the thumbnails and metadata. I’ve seen references to just mapping the drive to one of the folders that the thumbnails use but I would love to see if there a way to just point the data to a new folder instead. ---
**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2025, 6:43am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/2 "2025-11-30T06:43:39Z")
Moving just thumbnails and metadata usually doesn’t solve the whole problem. It’s usually best, and definitely easier / less complicated, to move the entire PMS “AppSuppDir” (directory where PMS resides) to a new location. How skilled are you with the Linux command line (1-10 scale) ? I can show you what you’ll need to do. If you’ll share where PMS is currently stored (default is /var/lib/plexmediaserver) and where you want to move it to, I’ll gladly show you how to do it easily & most efficiently. Once it’s moved, we simply create a local configuration configuration file (a systemd `override.conf` file to specify the new location. One procedure for moving and configuring is shown here: > [@Linux Tips](https://forums.plex.tv/t/linux-tips/276247/6): > > Moving Plex’s metadata (Library) directory on systemd based systems This information is intended for those systems where cat /proc/1/comm returns systemd. If your system returns init, please see the next post in this thread. While you may change /lib/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service, it is under the control of the package manager and subject to replacement without warning at any time during an update. To provide stability, systemd allows creation of an override.conf file to customiz… The directory you use is your choice as long as you perform all the steps. If you have questions, PLEASE don’t hesitate to ask. PS: Given you’re having a space problem, I’d like to ask how big your databases are. Are they bloated / very large ? (this was a bug in PMS 1.41.6 & 1.41.7 ) ---
**Author:** ![drplexuser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@drplexuser](https://forums.plex.tv/u/drplexuser)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2025, 7:51pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/3 "2025-11-30T19:51:55Z")
I’m about a 6 The /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server folder is taking up about 73 Gigs of my harddrive (of 1 TB), the Media is 35.1, and Metadata is 23.4 while plugin support (DB in there right? is 13.6 I like to avoid moving the DB to the NAS because if something happens and nas is offline while Plex is online I don’t want it to freak out. I would love to move the /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media and /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata to /plex/Metadata and Media to /plex/Media ---
**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/4 "2025-11-30T21:14:13Z")
Moving the DB to the NAS will not work. The DB access is multi-threaded and requires record/file locking which network storage does not reliably support. Eventually you will end up with a corrupted DB. If you go into the `Databases` directory, how big are the files? (`ls -lah`) I ask because if your databases are 13GB then there is a problem. They should NEVER be that big unless you have 100+ TB of media. Do you? ( I have 75 TB of media. I do turn off those features I don’t use. My `Databases` directory, with all the backups and me playing in there, is only 5.5 GB. The databases themselves are only in the hundreds of MB. ```auto [chuck@glockner Plex Media Server.1996]$ cd Plug-in\ Support/Databases/ [chuck@glockner Databases.1997]$ ls -lah total 5.5G drwxr-xr-x 2 plex plex 4.0K Nov 30 12:00 ./ drwxr-xr-x 7 plex plex 120 Apr 10 2025 ../ -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 382M Nov 27 02:03 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 382M Nov 20 02:10 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-20 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 382M Nov 23 02:13 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-23 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 382M Nov 26 02:06 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-26 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 382M Nov 29 02:11 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-29 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 32K Nov 30 12:00 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-shm -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 0 Nov 30 12:00 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-wal -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 599M Nov 30 15:42 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 593M Nov 20 02:06 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-20 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 594M Nov 23 02:13 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-23 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 596M Nov 26 02:03 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-26 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 599M Nov 29 02:08 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-29 -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 32K Nov 30 15:55 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-shm -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 4.0M Nov 30 15:55 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal -rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 5.5K Nov 17 21:09 DBRepair.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 647M Sep 21 23:25 db.sql [chuck@glockner Databases.1998]$ du -hs . 5.5G . [chuck@glockner Databases.1999]$ ``` Regarding the target move location, `/plex` is in the root directory. `/var` is also in the root . You won’t rebalance space utilization by moving PMS there. Depending on how you partitioned the drive at install, a `/home` partition would be the best place. As Example, look how I have my drives laid out. ```auto efivarfs 192K 116K 72K 63% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars /dev/nvme0n1p2 122G 39G 84G 32% / /dev/nvme0n1p1 499M 65M 434M 13% /boot/efi /dev/nvme0n1p4 1.0T 538G 486G 53% /home /dev/nvme2n1p1 931G 166G 766G 18% /sata /dev/nvme2n1p2 932G 271G 661G 30% /usb /dev/sda1 932G 6.6G 925G 1% /user ``` Because I have NVME ssds, I put PMS on the `/sata` SSD. It’s the same concept just a different name. ---
**Author:** ![drplexuser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@drplexuser](https://forums.plex.tv/u/drplexuser)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2025, 9:57pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/5 "2025-11-30T21:57:47Z")
I have about 52T of media. I think I may have some old backup files that could use cleaning up but not horrible with sizing ```auto drwxrwxrwx 2 plex plex 4.0K Nov 30 19:26 . drwxrwxrwx 7 plex plex 4.0K Sep 4 2024 .. -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 1.1M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.dlna.db -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 32K Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.dlna.db-shm -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 1.1M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.dlna.db-wal -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 4.0K Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.dlna-new.db -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 32K Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.dlna-new.db-shm -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 77K Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.dlna-new.db-wal -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 312M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library-2022-02-19-manual.db -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 1.1G Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs-2022-02-19-manual.db -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 1.4G Nov 30 19:26 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1.4G Nov 20 03:01 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-20 -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1.4G Nov 23 03:32 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-23 -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1.4G Nov 26 03:02 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-26 -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1.4G Nov 29 03:02 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-2025-11-29 -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 1.1G Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-old-2-27-2022 -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 32K Nov 30 21:43 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-shm -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 8.1M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-shm-2022-02-19-man -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 65K Nov 30 21:43 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-wal -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 1.1G Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db-wal-2022-02-19-man -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 469M Nov 30 21:42 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 0 Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2018-01-16-tmp -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 477M Nov 20 03:00 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-20 -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 470M Nov 23 03:32 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-23 -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 471M Nov 26 03:02 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-26 -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 467M Nov 29 03:02 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2025-11-29 -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 102M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-backup-3-7-2018 -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 314M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-old-2-27-2022 -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 32K Nov 30 21:48 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-shm -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 2.5M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-shm-2022-02-19-man -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 5.3M Nov 30 21:47 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal -rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 319M Sep 4 2024 com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-wal-2022-02-19-man -rw-r–r-- 1 root root 4.5K Sep 6 2024 DBRepair.log -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 32M Nov 30 21:01 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-caf86b9b-3ce1-4b25-b6ae-1565a3a5dbd6.db -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 32K Nov 30 21:36 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-caf86b9b-3ce1-4b25-b6ae-1565a3a5dbd6.db-shm -rw-r–r-- 1 plex plex 1.1M Nov 30 21:31 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-caf86b9b-3ce1-4b25-b6ae-1565a3a5dbd6.db-wal ``` /plex is a smb mount from my nas so while I say /plex it actually setup in my /etc/fstab as going to /nas/misc/plex (a folder I setup there). **MODERATOR EDIT: Make console output more easily readable** \* \_\_used code (```) block formatting. ---
**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2025, 11:58pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/6 "2025-11-30T23:58:36Z")
> [@drplexuser](#): > > /plex is a smb mount from my nas so while I say /plex it actually setup in my /etc/fstab as going to /nas/misc/plex (a folder I setup there). Using a network mount for PMS internals (anything under `Plex Media Server`) is not supported. It’s not supported because of the lack of file locking What do you have for host-local storage (HDD or SSD) where you could relocate PMS ? Your `Databases` directory could use a little cleanup but it’s not terrible . ✅ I was concerned the actual `.DB` files were huge. Yours are in line with what’s expected / normal. ---
**Author:** ![drplexuser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@drplexuser](https://forums.plex.tv/u/drplexuser)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2025, 1:08am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/7 "2025-12-01T01:08:41Z")
it a nuc with an m.2 ssd, i was going to upgrade the drive from a 1 tb to 4tb but i was hoping to avoid the cost and was hoping to offload the files I felt was least needed (not touching the DB but moving like metadata and thumbnails since a few years ago I was able to resolve this similar issue by just removing preview thumbnails). I can always double check if there a second m.2 slot which probably there is. I just was hoping for a software fix vs having to change something hardware-wise. ---
**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2025, 2:25am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/8 "2025-12-01T02:25:26Z")
Which NUC (make & model) do you have ? What’s the capacity of the SSD? 500GB? I have four Intel NUCs (NUC8-i7-HVK, NUC7-i3-BNK). All of them have two m.2 slots. I have three other mini-pc (4x4" bricks) with two M.2 slots as well. Most are NVMe-capable. One of them is SATA-only m.2 which is still more than fast enough for PMS. (SATA M.2 is 525 MB/sec) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2026, 2:26am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/move-metadata-for-ubuntu-plex/934020/9 "2026-03-01T02:26:14Z")
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