However, I have about 1800 movies in my library, and I pretty much only use it to play on my 4k TV at home. However, without any configuration from me, Plex has created 4 additional transcodes of each file in the library, even ones that have not been watched for a long time, and in some cases ever.
This must either be a default setting, or something I’ve accidentally enabled, but I’ve had to re-size my NAS twice now to create more space, and as fast as I remove the additional files from the @Transcode folder on my server, they re-appear.
In searching, I have come across a number of posts on how to turn this off, but the instructions and/
or screenshots are almost entirely for older versions, and menu options referenced don’t match my server version ( Version 1.14.1.5488), and don’t relate.
I’m sure I can’t be unique in just wanting to turn alternate version transcoding off, period, and just store my original files in the library.
My files are generally the highest quality possible versions I can find, so don’t see any value at all in transcoding anything, to what can only be a lower quality version.
Any help gratefully recieved, before I tear out the rest of my hair!
You most likely have a “smart” optimization job set already. Please go look.
If you created a Smart job by accident, anything added will automatically be optimized for you.
By deleting the job, no new copies will be generated until you want one.
Unfortunately, your next step is to manually delete the extras.
Hi Chuck, thanks for your suggestion. It’s entirely possible I may have done this accidentally. Could you point we to where the job might be located, as I’ve been through all the menus what feels like a 100 times, and I haven’t found something like this.
That is the idea, unless there is some other influence factor from a 3rd party app
or perhaps some folder manipulation made by the user.
But if all you ever did was adding media (organized and named like the official guides detail it) then yes, this will only delete the optimized versions.
Yes, I just use “movie_title [year]” for file name, and place all files into a folder named “All Movies” when I realised Plex does a far better job of cataloging them than I could. I used to have folders by year, and then sub-folders by genre; Comedy, Family, Action etc.
I saw this option but was a little reticent in case it blew the original content files away too!
Having such subfolders is still not a bad idea, because they help you to keep the number of files in one folder lower.
You should avoid having several hundred files in a single folder. It will slow down operation, both of Plex and other software.
But don’t change anything yet! Wait until you have gotten rid of the optimized versions.
It will restrict itself to files which are listed in the Plex database as ‘optimized versions’.
If you did not manipulate these files / folders, there are no issues to be expected.
Hi Chuck, Under “Scheduled Tasks”, there is an option called “Optimize database every week”, which is ticked. Having researched this, I came to the conclusion that this is a more general optimization of the library database, rather than the media files. I noted that the two options optimize and optimise are spelled differently, although this could just be a type I guess.
