Tagging

[dizziemr]

Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
Player Version#:

I have my home videos organized like TV shows by year on Plex and thought that if I tagged the videos with various keywords I could then search for videos using those tags. After tagging a few however, I tried searching and none of them came up. Is there a way to search content using the tags, and if not, what is the point of tagging content? Is there another way to search easily for specific videos?

[tom80H]

I suppose you’re looking for the library filters?
You can e.g. filter your library by year/decade, genre, content rating, collection, cast/crew (actor, director, writer, producer), country, studio or (sharing) labels.
All of those (except for the actor field) are based on the tags you can edit within Plex. If you have configured Plex to use embedded metadata, Plex will also use embedded tags (incl. actor information – I’ve been using this for some time to filter by family members in certain videos).

Filtering also supports limiting your library by certain technical aspects (e.g. resolution, audio/subtitle language [if applicable], HDR, playback status…).

Edit:
Search will mostly go for the video’s title, actor/director.

[dizziemr]

It sounds like that would do the trick for me. This may be a dumb question, but how do I set up filtering? I don’t see that setting anywhere. How do I add information like actors to the videos? The only tags I see are Writers and Directors, neither of which appear to show up in search results at the top of the screen. Thanks for your help.

[tom80H]

It’s not a setting but part of the regular library controls. In each library you’ll find the basic controls that allow:

1. filtering (green box) – defaulting to All (=no filters applied)

2. display mode (pink box)

   • for movie libraries you can display the library by movies or folders
   • for tv-show libraries you can display the library by shows, seasons, episodes or folders
   • for music libraries you can display the library by artist, album, tracks or folders

3. sorting (red box)

If you click the filter box/selection you can pick by what parameter you want to filter your library. At the bottom of the list, there’s also an option for a custom filter that allows you to combine multiple filters or to exclude certain tags (instead of only showing those)

[dizziemr]

I’m running Plex on my QNAP NAS and maybe that’s the difference, but I don’t have any of those categories at the top of my screen. All I see is this:

Any idea if there is a way for me to get filtering still?

Thanks!

[tom80H]

Those options are available when you open your library and go to the library tab.