Moving your media and keeping the metadata - The TL;DR

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Moving your media and keeping the metadata - The TL;DR

This Tip / How-To, while tagged for Linux, is applicable to all PMS platforms.

Preparation

  1. Turn off “Empty Trash after Library Scan”
  2. Turn off “Automatically Update my Library”
  3. Make all the moves

Move your media

Make any configuration changes or physical media file moving you need to.
When you are done, proceed with the actual PMS configuration change

Updating your PMS configruation

  1. Edit each library section - Folders - ADD the new location (Do not remove the old yet) - SAVE the changes.
  2. PMS will see the new location and begin scanning.
  3. As each item is matched, a 2 will appear (duplicate) on each item already in your library . This is expected and desired proof everything is going as expected.
  4. When completed, Edit the library section again. REMOVE the old media location.
  5. Scan one final time. Observe the 2 being removed.
  6. Empty the Trash
  7. Clean the bundles
  8. Optimize the database
  9. Wash - Rinse - Repeat for each library section until done
  10. Return to Settings - Server - Library, turn Automatic and Empty Trash back on.

That’s it. Your media has now been moved to its new location(s) and PMS is updated to reflect this.

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