Server Version#: 4.22.1
Windows based Server linked to a NAS that hosts the files.
I already have an existing library of movies I backed up onto my Plex server all of the files have have a “-” in the name and I want to remove it. The library has Video preview thumbnails enabled. If I rename all the files will these all need to be recreated? I have renamed items before but never on such a large scale so trying to see what the consequence or fall out could be if i did this.
Maybe.
Such is life - when you decide to name your files properly - after the fact.
Yeah, I guess I can just delete the thumbnail cache and then rename the files.
Does PLEX delete thumbs if the file is not found? Is there any built in maintenance like that?
I wouldn’t delete anything as far as Thumbs go.
Any that can be used, will be. Any that can’t will be regenerated.
Before you do anything you should ‘Clean Bundles’ and ‘Optimize the Database’.
After you rename a million files and the gears stop grinding - you should do it again.
My view, do a “Clean Bundles” and “Optimize Database” as @JuiceWSA suggested, then do a few files and see how it all settles. Did it screw things up? Are the Thumbnails working ok?
Then do another few, and again, see how things behave.
Once you know the behavior, you can then decide if you want to make changes on mass, or just do a bunch at a time to be more safe.
I personally backup my Plex Data location every 3 hours to ensure that I have the ability to step back to any point in time I wish, but then I’m an IT Guy and a geek! 
clean bundles should remove any old/unused/orphaned thumbnails and any other metadata from videos removed/moved/renamed.
That is good advice.
I’ve never needed to do a massive file re-naming, but I have renamed files before, and metadata and thumbnails are not re-created
I think Plex actually does some sort of magic behind the scenes and assigns a sort of “hash” number to the file, and can identify the file by that. It appears to work quite well, and I assume it would work when you rename a bunch of files in the same manner.
When I recently restructured 28 libraries down to 2 - I had a guestimated 35% regen rate.
Reason unknown.
Not bad I guess - considering.
Old-time Plexers probably have at least that percentage of movies identified by different agents over the years. Plex would probably consider it as a new movie simply based on the fact it isn’t being matched by the same agent it had been matched to previously,
Similarily, I can run into the same sort of problem when I “upgrade” the quality of a video, it will be detected with a different agent than previously, and add it as a “new” movie. I can then fix the match and select the agent I previously used, and the new status goes away. Of course, new thumbnails are generated, because the file is different, in this case.
That’s what everybody keeps telling me.
The fact is that my movie agent has been TMDB since Terry Jones dropped me out of his womb on the kitchen floor while making Porridge - and it’s TMDB now that we’ve buried him.
That’s all I know for sure.
35% ain’t bad - and now when I move stuff around it’s not a problem.
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