PMS Version#: 1.18.3.2129
Well, 13,000+ images (photos + videos) on, I’m at the end of my Plex Photo library journey. I’m sure there will be users with a six-digit number of images. I’m just not a passionate and enthusiastic photo taker. In fact those 13,000+ images were taken over a period of around 13 years, or around 1,000 images per year, so I’m really a low-end camera user. Still, I’m really pleased to have consolidated those images in a Plex Photo library and made those images readily available from any Plex enabled device.
Without a doubt, compared to music, TV shows, live TV and movies, Plex Photos has been the most challenging to get working from a content perspective. Unlike the former (music, shows, movies have naming convention guides; live TV has a tuner compatibility guide) there’s really not a lot of guidance provided with Plex Photos. I think there’s room for something to be set up here. For instance, even Google provides a guide Google Photos - Back up Photos and Videos on what camera formats are supported.
Timeline Issues arising from Adding Content
Some of these have been reported in other posts. The ones I came across are summarised below. Details can be found elsewhere in this thread.
Timeline Issues arising from the Image Format
Contrary to the statement in Plex Photos & Videos that Plex Photos is compatible with any format (this is probably true for the Plex Photo Library component only), the Plex Photo Timeline appears to be sensitive to the image format used. My observations are summarised below.
Useful Tools
Tabled below are the tools I found useful when working with content for the Plex Photo library. These did the job for me, but I’m sure there are other equivalent tools that will work. I basically chose these as they are all (excluding Windows 10) available as portable apps. Several of these are included in the Portable Apps suite if you’re familiar with that. The remainder can be added to that suite.
Plex Photo - Server and Client Issues
In the course of adding content to the Plex Photo library, I came across several application issues in the Plex Photos module both in the Plex server web UI and several clients that I use. Some of these have already been identified by other forum users. Links are provided below.
PMS Issues:
Android Client Issues:
https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-photos-android-mobile-timeline-slider-missing/518497/3
https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-photos-android-tv-timeline-slider-issue/518519/2
Closing Comments
Plex has the potential to be a great platform for showcasing home photos and videos on any supported client and wherever you are in the world at the time. However, don’t expect to dump all those photos into a Plex library and expect Plex to sort them out for you like it seems to magically do (most of the time) for music, shows and movies. There’s a lot to be said for a structured approach to cataloguing and naming your images on the disk. This will aid in troubleshooting and addressing issues that arise from time to time.
