What logic does Plex use for displaying local album artwork?

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
1

Server Version#: 1.15.5.994 running in Docker on UnRaid
Player Version#: 3.83.2 on Windows 10

I am not having an issue but more wondering what logic Plex uses to display album artwork. In my music collection I embedded an 800x800 picture file for the album artwork in the music file itself. However in the folder for the album and with the music files I store a higher resolution 1500x1500 picture file. The reason I limit the embedded artwork is because some of my music players, primarily in my cars, do not display artwork over 800x800.

My question is which artwork does Plex use - the one embedded in the music file or the higher resolution one that is at the root of the folder? I originally was having some issues when running my Plex server on Windows (I have since switched to UnRaid) where it was accidentally picking up much lower resolution artwork (75x75) files that Windows was automatically creating in the root of the folder. This makes me think that it picks up the artwork at the root of the folder and that it is used before the artwork embedded in the music file (although it might be different between Windows and Linux).

If it does pick up the artwork at the root of the folder first, does the artwork have to have any particular name? The docs spell out how to handle artwork for Movies and TV shows but doesn’t mention anything for Music. Ideally I would like for it to pick up the higher resolution 1500x1500 artwork that I have at the root of the folder.

In Plex for my Music library I have enabled the option to use embedded data and I have the Local Media Agent enabled and set to the first agent in the list of agents to use.

2

possible ‘side car’ files for music

1 Like
3

Thanks. That is exactly the information I was looking for. I wonder why they do not doc this like they do for Movies and TV Shows. Good thing I was already calling the file at the root of the folder cover.jpg. That means I don’t have to do anything else!

4

You can use folder.jpg as well.

You can even have a subfolder named scans with pictures in it.

5

That would explain the problem I had back with Windows. The 75x75 picture was called folder.jpg. For some reason Plex was choosing that file over the much larger resolution 1500x1500 cover.jpg file. When I moved the library over to my UnRaid server I just moved the cover.jpg artwork files and deleted the rest.

6

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.