Multiple music libraries and playlists

General Discussions
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I’ve been running a large (75k tracks/1TB) music library for 18 months. Over that time I’ve made tons/hundred+ playlists. I am in the process of creating a second library (exactly same files) but this time with multiple folders each with smaller volume of files rather than 1 single folder. I’ve noticed that when I want to add a track from the new library to a playlist, Plex automatically takes me to the existing playlists created under the old library. Should not the new library create its own new playlists?

I will eventually delete my original library to make space on the NAS and assumed all playlists will go when I do. But according to current experience it seems Playlists (if not their content) will remain behind?

Ideally, it would be great if they did (and their content too). Can anyone help me understand?
Thanks

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Playlists are global. You can add items from different libraries to the same playlist.
That’s why you see all playlists in the “Add to Playlist” dialog.

And no, if you delete the library, the playlists will lose all items from this library

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thanks OttoKerner. I figured as much about deleting a library that I would lose the tracks. What about if I move the files to another parent folder (and subfolder) on my NAS? I suppose I would lose them from the playlist too as the library is not ‘pointing’ to that folder?

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That’s a tricky one. It depends on whether each track gets recognized and ‘matched’ as the same track as before. Which is rather unlikely in the case of music.

There are some ways you can try:
Before try do any of them, download a backup copy of your main Plex database file and keep it safe in case something goes wrong

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  • export your playlists using WebTools
  • move the files
  • re-import the playlists using WebTools

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