# Stopping Plex From Changing Cover Art **URL:** \ **Category:** Plex Media Server\ **Tags:** server-windows\ **Created:** [July 22, 2024, 1:12pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234 "2024-07-22T13:12:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AshTray900](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ashtray900/32/12660_2.png) [@AshTray900](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AshTray900)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2024, 1:12pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234/1 "2024-07-22T13:12:36Z")
I am not fond of things being altered, many things have scanned in well and then later the cover art is replaced with a horrible image or just something I wont recognize well. I am aware that I can lock the files and that this happens when i make a manual change, however the library is huge and doing this on each movie / tv show would take an extreme amount of time. can someone explain these two settings to me as to what they do and if they can be used to prevent this? - Refresh local metadata every three days - Refresh library metadata periodically ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234/2 "2024-07-22T15:03:53Z")
“local metadata” is refreshing embedded meta tags from your files as well as sidecar posters and subtitles. “refresh periodically” is doing the same, but this time from the online metadata database. i.e. it is this which you should disable, if you want Plex to never update anything about descriptions, critic ratings, or posters. ---
**Author:** ![Arthuro-1er](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/arthuro-1er/32/229843_2.png) [@Arthuro-1er](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Arthuro-1er)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2024, 6:51am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234/3 "2024-08-31T06:51:15Z")
Faced with the same problem of posters that change during an automatic update, I can see that I can lock the titles and other but not the posters. Can you tell me where I can lock the poster update? ---
**Author:** ![TechieGuy12](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/techieguy12/32/81993_2.png) [@TechieGuy12](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TechieGuy12)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2024, 6:23pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234/4 "2024-09-03T18:23:58Z")
I have managed to lock posters using the Plex API but I don’t think it is possible through the Web app: > **[How to Prevent Plex from Changing Movie Posters](https://www.plexopedia.com/blog/keep-plex-posters/)** > > Plex may changed your movie posters when it updates a movie's metadata. Find out how to prevent Plex from changing movie posters in this post. ---
**Author:** ![OttoKerner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/ottokerner/32/10079_2.png) [@OttoKerner](https://forums.plex.tv/u/OttoKerner)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2024, 10:57am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234/6 "2024-09-04T10:57:23Z")
> [@TechieGuy12](#): > > have managed to lock posters using the Plex API but I don’t think it is possible through the Web app: Selecting a poster manually in the Edit dialog on an item will do exactly that. You can check that by looking at the [plex media info](https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201998867-Investigate-Media-Information-and-Formats) XML after you selected a poster. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2024, 10:57am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/stopping-plex-from-changing-cover-art/883234/7 "2024-12-03T10:57:42Z")
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