How has this thread NOT just turned into an RFP from US to Plex? Tell the community how much it’d really cost to add this development to current active development and let the community put its money where its mouth is. I’d certainly pitch in and pay money for the development of “premium” features, even though this is certainly one that should already just exist.
I think I’ve mentioned it before in this thread that all the signs exist this feature is waiting in the background to just be turned on with the LABEL + Collection/Smart Collection systems. Create all your collections and subcollections using labels and smart collections. You can currently label individual movies/shows AND collections. SO… as it stands currently ALL the fields and “theoretical” functionality is there…
Within a collection you want to create a subcollection you simply go to that Smart Collections filters and add the label for the collection(s) to bring into that collection as SUBcollections. This shouldn’t even really change any existing hierarchy. They just need to allow Smart Collections to pull other SMART COLLECTIONS/COLLECTIONS in based on labels.
An example: Creating a Disney collection, with all the various subsidiary production companies Disney owns as subcollections:
ALL FILMS DISNEY: Labeled “Disney” (Smart Collection “Disney” looks for Disney label)
ALL FILMS STAR WARS: Labeled “Disney” and “Star Wars” (Smart Collection “Disney” adds it to that collection; Smart Collection “Star Wars” adds it to that collection) - this would put this star wars film into BOTH Disney and Star Wars smart collections (like I would want them categorized, leave off the “Disney” to take it out)
(ALL OTHER PRODUCTION COMPANIES/DESIRED SUBCOLLECTIONS WOULD FOLLOW THE STAR WARS EXAMPLE)
IN THE DISNEY SMART COLLECTION add “Star Wars” label to the filter
IN THE STAR WARS (AND OTHERS) COLLECTION METADATA label the collection “Star Wars”
At this point, in the Disney Smart Collection, ordered first are the SUBCOLLECTIONS labeled “Disney”, then all the individual films labeled Disney (or that match other filters)
Didn’t you hear that one guy? He said it’s not easy! It’s SUPER HARD!
I mean, just look at all these questions. It’s almost like a developer can’t make these decisions on their own so they’re waiting for someone else to make it for them.
Maybe we need to reach out to Plex’s CEO.? I heard she is very cool and open to bright and great ideas to better enhance Plex that brings the best viewing experience to the users. This feature is long overdue and with the advancements in Gen AI specifically for coding and coders should make this feature a reality.
I think the problem with this “Nested Collections” suggestion and the reason why it’s in limbo is because of the scale of this thread ballooning over the years into many different “requests” or ideas from different people. So something simple like the idea of “grouping” items inside a collection has turned into something daunting for the devs to take on.
For me, the only thing I want is the possibility of “grouping” collections on the Collections page. Like this:
Right now, the “Collections” page is kind of ugly; it’s just a list of collections without the appearance of structure, organization, or order—they’re all just thrown in one big pile side-by-side alphabetically.
But I know what people really want is the ability of “grouping” items inside the collection. It would make the collection look more structured and not just a bunch of movies thrown in a big pile.
Honestly, if we think about it, those two problems (1) no structure in the collections page and (2) no structure inside the collection, are the same problem. People could easily create collections for each of these:
93rd Academy Awards - Best Picture
93rd Academy Awards - Best Actor
93rd Academy Awards - Best Actress
Each of those can be in its own collection. And they can be grouped as “one row” in the Collections page. The reason why people don’t do it that way as a workaround? Because the Collections page doesn’t have any way of grouping collections, so you end up with many collections strung up side-by-side, and it’ll just look messy and ugly.
Anyway, the better solution is to add the ability to group items inside the collection. I think everyone would be happy with that instead of a full-blown “nested” Collections (since it seems like that’s not happening). Just add another field/tag called “collection grouping” or something like that. Then, when a collection is opened, the items in that collection will be grouped by that tag. This new field/tag would only serve to improve the aesthetic of collections and wouldn’t be used anywhere else, so it wouldn’t affect any other SQL operations.
Add one more voice to the request for some sort of nested collections. With the ability for movies (or collections) be part of multiple (other) collections, this would be a huge game changer for organizing movies under Plex.
I didn’t read all the topic but an easier solution to implement this feature would be to have related collections
A manual feature of related collections for a first implementation will be already a good one !
An automatic feature would be wonderfull (but more complicated to do).
From what Plex has communicated, the enhancements they are working on and planning to roll out in 2025 will not include nested collections or anything that will address this. Maybe 2026 or 2027?
but an easier solution to implement this feature would be to have related collections 
