I have a series with varying formats. I optimized all the episodes without issue and they are playing well. I, as anyone would do, deleted the original files. Then, I transfer the optimized versions from the “Plex Version” folder that is created. When I told plex to rescan the TV library to map to the new files it deleted all the optimized versions. I then have to go into the recycle bin and restore them - plex doesn’t try to delete them again after this process.
This doesn’t make sense - none of the files are watched on plex so I dont understand why plex is deleting the newly created files that I want to keep.
Is Plex running when you do this? Do you have it set to auto update your libraries?
Keep in mind that the optimized versions are based on the original. If you delete the original and PMS sees it, it will scan and see that the original is gone so it will remove the optimized versions. Do not delete the original. Instead, just copy the optimized version and replace the original.
Thank you for detailing plex’s logic behind the process - seems like there should be an option to tell plex to remove the originals once optimization is complete. Not sure about the majority of users but I imagine the feature is used to clear up any playback issues attributed to codec compatibility. keeping both files is then redundant. Otherwise, at least in my case, I am just duplicating the files and using more storage until I go digging around.
There are many uses for the media optimize feature. It can also be used to generate lower quality, more compatible versions that can better stream remotely or via a mobile network, but the original full size file might still be wanted for local streaming. I have seen users that want to replace their original, but I don’t think that is the most common use so there isn’t any automated way to do that.
You can create a feature request and if it is popular, we can consider it.
