Hi,
My drive has hit the limit. I’d like to move all my movies (in folder Movies) to another drive, and leave my TV Shows (in folder TV Shows) where they are. Can this be done?
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201154537-Move-Media-Content-to-a-New-Location
The trick is to ‘Copy’ first - Add new folder location to existing library - wait - when you have ‘Blue 2s’ on everything and the gears stop turning - you can remove the old location, scan the library again, to remove the Blue 2s - and then delete the old movie folder.
Patience and the correct procedure is key.
I do it all the time.
Yes it can be done, even keeping Plex library intact.
Don’t touch Plex just for second, leave it running. Now copy your data to \New_drive \Movies*.* Important not to remove anything from old drive yet.
Once you are done with copying, in Plex click on … next to the movies library, edit, add folders and add your \New_drive \Movies. Let Plex rescan library. You will see that each movies has blue “2” in top right corner, meaning there are two copies of the same file. Once library scan is completed click on … next to the movies library, edit, add folders and remove your \Old_drive\Movies. Plex will remove non existing files after fast rescan and you can remove your files from hdd.
I am preparing to undergo this pain myself. Can you continue to add things to the new target directory while you’re migrating? Will that mess anything up, or will it just add the new things as it normally would? Asking for a friend.
In this solution you copy your data first, then add new location, so you can’t really new content. The whole migration takes couple hours, depending really on amount of the data you are moving around.
For the initial move it would be best to ‘mirror’ the old movie folder exactly. That way Plex will put ‘Blue 2s’ on everything and ‘Share’ the old metadata with the items in the new location. Once that’s done and the ‘whirring and buzzing’ stops (Blue 2s on everything) - you can whack the old library folder from library targets, rescan to remove the Blue 2s then delete the old folder.
I mean - unless you just want to generate new video preview thumbnails (in a three week CPU burning process) - but I don’t recommend it.
lol
@II6GodII said:
My drive has hit the limit. I’d like to move all my movies (in folder Movies) to another drive, and leave my TV Shows (in folder TV Shows) where they are. Can this be done?
Keep in mind when considering such a move that you can also just ‘add’ your new drive to your existing libraries.
If you create some folders on the new drive, like
Movies2 /
Series2 /
and then you add these folders to your ‘movie’ and ‘tv show’ libraries respectively, you can largely avoid bigger file ‘moving’ operations.
In my case, my new NAS is faster, and I would like it to be the primary host of video content. I had planned on copying it show by show and waiting for the “blue 2” notations to firmly appear by show before removing the originals.
Now that I write that out, it seems rather suicidal, and I should probably make sure the whole directory is duplicated before I delete the originals.
@AmazingRando24 said:
Now that I write that out, it seems rather suicidal, and I should probably make sure the whole directory is duplicated before I delete the originals.
Amen - and again - Amen.
Let’s turn to page 187 in our Hymnals for ‘The Old Rugged Cross’…
… and a one… and a two…
A brief follow up… I discovered TeraCopy yesterday. That made moving files from one place to another a complete breeze. It was faster than a normal Explorer copy, completing my entire movie library in under 3 hours. Shows are another story, as that is clocking in at just under a day to move from one NAS to another NAS.
TeraCopy is also nice because it keeps track of errors if any, and doesn’t stop for user input. It can be paused and resumed as well.
I’ve got 26 Libraries - for now - so moving one of them isn’t that tedious.
Usually by the time I discover I need to shuffle some media I also discover I can ‘tune up’ the structure:
Nearing Zero Hour now… and considering the ‘Tune Up’:
Question…
First: I’ve moved the files to the new area.
Second: I have added the new directory to Plex right alongside the old directory
A scan begins, and it appears it’s tying metadata to the new (duplicate) media. I assume that’s normal behavior.
What data stays and what data is new? Looks like metadata is new. I assume watch history carries over from the old once it’s removed. Anything else new or carried over that I should know about? Do thumbnails carry over? Custom movie names?
Did you change your library’s default metadata agent?
If so, it might be that your old movies are tied to the formerly used metadata agent
and the newly scanned in movies get tied to the current default agent.
When that happens, the copied movies get recognised as separate movies and are not tied to the existing metadata.
But I’d wait until the library scan is over.
then go into your library and see on how many posters the little 2 appears.
If it’s there, all is well. If it’s missing, the copied files were treated as a new movie.
It is VERY possible I’ve changed agents at some point, however I get all 2s on all files. So, maybe this is just testament to my file naming convention skills? In either case, I’d hate to lose my watch history and thumbnails if this is the case.
It is almost impossible to blow your watch status.
I’ve never been able to do it and I can blow up almost anything.
lol
As I said, if the 2’s are there, all is going well.
And if I want to use my old drive letter for my new drive how i’ll do it? Example, want to move content frome drive D : / and E:/ to drive F:/ and I’ll do it as described above. But after that I want to remove old drives D : / and E:/ and rebame drive F:/ to D : /. It can be done?
Yes. Copy D and E to F: Stop Plex. Remove drive letters in disk management, change F to D. Start Plex.
