- In theory, if the changes you made in Plex are locked (meaning there is a lock icon on the field, AND it is orange), then a metadata refresh should not overwrite your changes. There have been some cases where locked fields are overwritten (I’ve experienced it a few times myself). I don’t know the status of those issues. I would be cautious.
Just for clarity:
2 and 3. I wouldn’t recommend it. The music scanning agent was rewritten in 2019. The new scanner is a LOT more accurate than the old one when embedded tags are complete and accurate. However, it’s also more dependent on your tags being complete and accurate. It’s also a lot more dependent on the folder structure and filenames of your files (which makes no sense to me). I don’t know how it will respond if you only tag some tracks and not all. The Help page includes this statement:
Importantly, if this option is enabled, then it basically means that you’re promising that not only is your entire music library tagged with embedded metadata, but also that it’s tagged correctly.
They seem to have lost the notion of using the local tags that are there, and backfilling what’s missing from online sources.
The bottom line is, I think you’ll see unpredictable results if you configure Plex for local tags if your tags aren’t in excellent shape.
If you decide to go the Local Metadata route, be sure you’re fully configured for it. It’s more than just the checkbox.
