Plex delete metadata folder reddit The script only supports Chinese and English. Plex added the new MP4 files but wouldn't remove the MP4 files from the library. I don't mind the proprietary metadata but it has now bulked to 150gb+ and I wish it would just store the metadata in the medias original folders on my storage drive. mkv that hits that folder? Just to automate the process? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. is okay 5. Then plex scan. To anyone who might find this post later: After being unable to delete the old, unused plex metadata folder from the HDD originally installed (and later migrated away from), from both Windows 10 and debian linux directory navigators (Windows Explorer and GNOME Files) the fix was to delete the folder via TrueNAS Scale shell (linux terminal) directly. I have a looot of compilation albums. obvi, you'd have to repull all meta data. also i dont have them Kinda new to Plex but I looked lots of places for this answer and cannot seem to find one. json sidecar files are always a bit unwieldy - best thing I found is to put the videos in MP4 and then embed the metadata in the MP4, Plex has no issues reading that. Examine the library to make sure that Plex is seeing both the 'new' and the 'old' media, Plex should indicate the duplicates with the '2' on each media item, or view by duplicates (movies - click on All, scroll down and select Duplicates; TV - change view to by Episodes, select Duplicates); check that metadata, etc. 5 million folders with even more tiny files. (Plex does not support embedded metadata in formats like AVI, MKV and WMV) Do a scan. " (remove files from library, re-scan, empty trash, delete bundles, optimize database, restore files, they try refreshing metadata again. Then see what plex decided is a new movie, and merge with old where needed. I am using a dedicated old laptop with 100GB SSD. For example I wrote this batch file to remove any metadata in the Title and Comments fields and skip any files that already didn't contain any info in those fields. Although, if you're going to be doing all that you should also think about putting your server and plex clients all on Ethernet instead of just wifi because that also makes a significant difference when browsing large libraries (and playing back UHD See that’s the thing. Rename the files back (remove . Even if it works, and I'm not sure it does, it's a pain having to remove all the metadata from all my files before I add them to the library. Editing the metadata only go so far as you can't do something with the editor in Plex (such as edit the actors). But I cannot find a way to remove just one shows metadata on it's own. My (very large) music library has generally very good metadata and I use MusicBee to auto-organize the folder structure in a Plex-friendly "[Album Artist]/[Album]" hierarchy. While the initial time investment is substantial (configuring the YML files with your metadata changes), I've found it much easier to manage than backing up databases or the millions of files in Plex's appdata folder. The metadata folder contains >90. I've been using Plex for years and this is my only complaint. Remove Show files from plex folders, scan library for files (update library), clean bundles, empty trash, move files back to Plex folder, refresh library again "Refresh Metadata" and "Fix Incorrect Match" after Plex dance Unless, of course, Plex remove the metadata and information when it detected the missing files, hence why you would want to deactivate the "Empty trash automatically after every scan" because then Plex will clean the database and remove unavailable content and all information with it. 2GB. This means every client that uses the scrubbing thumbnail previews will just show a black square (because the images are missing), and Plex won't generate them again in the future because it has no reason to. to save it for a bit. So i was wondering why my SSD was full, turns out the plex metadata for just my music is about 300GB. You can save some space by deleting them from your libraries (Manage Library > Edit > Advanced > Delete Preview Thumbnails), or as a less nuclear option, adjusting the "Advanced, Hidden Server Setting" GenerateBIFFrameInterval. Depending on what Metadata Agent you use and how it works (the default Plex Agents are closed source so no way of telling what they do specifically) they could remove all existing metadata and just slap their own on it, this seems to be the case in a few instances for like Movie Posters but, again, with a closed source Agent this is just my guess. At this point we should more or less be in a similar situation as your guide offers, with duplicates everywhere, both from my merged library files and the newly added one. Now run Preview and see that it will see and remove the entire contents of the PhotoTranscoder folder (for me it was 60+GB in size). and with 15TB of data and roughly 25K files my plex server config folder is maybe 30GB. I use a tool from MusicBrainz called Picard. This prevents you from scraping that metadata again if you ever wanted to go back (in my case, I usually read metadata from . db' file? is there a way i could get the metadata back to being in the xml files? But today, with a recently updated PMS, they are clobbering the metadata update. This worked fine for a few weeks. Maybe this is better posted in the r/plex subreddit My Metadata folder is 25GB. There is metadata , media files (poster art/preview files), logs , etc that scale both with the age and size of your install. bif Caution folder locations will not be correct for every windows install - research yours. Keep your box running but turn off Plex. Once Plex thinks there's two of everything I'll delete the old folder and do an empty trash clean-up to delete the now dead metadata links to the old folder. I can't seem to delete these unnecessary folders Any suggestions? The folders in question are folders in Plex, not PC. Almost everything in Plex is tied mainly to the metadata and the actual files are associated with that metadata item. I've spent a fair bit of time over the past week trying to fix my content's metadata (not the Plex metadata, the actual files' metadata) so that it doesn't screw with Plex. Metadata is a little more tricky. I probably should have explained what the tool was doing in my OP. Plex itself works the way that it only scans the folders you have assigned to your library and does not modify those folders in any way (unless, of course, you enabled deletion and delete something). Oddly enough, my Plex install was 250Gb several ago, but it’s around 70Gb today. i use to have this problem with plex. Open a command prompt and run 2 commands: > CD C:\Users\sysadmin\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Media\localhost > del /s *. It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you figure it out, it's a very fast way to tag your music. I did non realize that the server would be storing so much Metadata in the local “appdata” directory, and this is starting to become a problem – That “Plex Media Server” folder in “appdata” directory is holding some ~75GB of data – apparently media metadata. Also I can tell you aren’t naming your files correctly so I suggest you read the guide and follow the naming convention Plex tells you to use. Plex also prioritizes online metadata over locally stored metadata unless you tell it to use it. Depending on what Metadata you have to adjust again, you might want to look into storing poster metadata next to the file as poster. click (2006) ive done many fresh installs lately tring to fix the photo timeline issue. This metadata would also never be updated unless you use TinyMediaManager to update the NFO file and then refresh the metadata in When Plex scans the file, if you have "prefer local metadata" set, it will use that metadata. C:\ is now 100% full and Plex won't play anymore. In Plex, for each movie or show episode you need to reset, AFTER YOU HAVE MOVED THE FILE, click the […] and select DELETE. Plex take space only for metadata and covers. WARNING: if you do this BEFORE moving the file, the file will be deleted. Now when Plex prompts to upgrade the libraries, I ignore it - not trusting that again. Select Clean and it will remove all of the folders/files within the directory. The write permissions would be for the folder where your metadata and we’re likely given during installation in that folder Scan files, let Plex delete all it's incorrect entries, clean trash. The app deleted copies of movie/TV show posters that were no longer in use that are generated by plex-meta-manager, which I use. It's constantly adding metadata to files and misidentifying them. If you don't follow the naming convention that plex expects and you throw the files into Plex just like they are then metadata can be weird. Delete 'old' media Disabled Thumbnail Generation, hit the Delete Preview Thumbnails Button, Emptied Trash, and Rescaned the folder with WinDirStat. The Plex metadata (local\plex media server) folder tends to slowly grow over time until one day my SSD is full and I delete it manually. Found an easy way to delete all of the files. library. Thumbnails are turned off, I have emptied the trash and refreshed all metadata a day ago. Unfortunately all tools built into Windows require reformatting the drive in order to change the allocation size. Without going to the database, you'd need to trick Plex into thinking the files are new. If you're using the newer Plex TV Series agent, uncheck Manage Library > Edit > Advanced > Prefer local metadata. It's a pain in the butt to have to use MKVtoolnix to remove the title metadata on every single MKV. Now open the "Command Prompt" using the Run As Administrator option. You should then close the Plex server application, manually move the files (I always copy first, then only delete the originals once I know it gets picked up right). Make sure you have set the correct language. Moving terabytes if movies would never be a problem. 1 TB, so maybe the amount I recovered tracks, I'm not sure. Auto metadata refresh is also annoying on the TV side not only because posters changing, but also since Specials would keep getting shuffled around on TheTVDB and so the metadata refresh would mean episodes/files I had in that folder wouldn't have the correct info either a lot of the time. Plex for some reason insists on having a copy of it's own proprietary metadata in folder C:\Users\X\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Media\localhost. What is the best solution, external or otherwise, that I can use to update/correct the metadata of my library files that will remain when the library recompiles or moves or Plex rescans? I saw a comment years ago with someone using Tiny Media Manager and a plugin that read NFO files, but Plex hasn’t supported plugins for a while. So changing metadata on files will not do anything if you don't tell Plex to also use them. Readd your folder paths and scan again. If you Merge the old metadata with the new metadata, the old metadata will override the new. Now I want to remove that data and get it to rescan again with some ignore flags enabled. That's not how empty trash works. Fairly safe to delete the Metadata folder. This problem with the Plex Music metadata engine has driven me crazy for a long time, and I have gone in circles so many times that I need a sanity check. You add the file to Plex. Plex is using the metadata title embedded into the MKV. Scan all libraries (this will clear the database of "orphan movie" metadata). plexapp. I tried Refreshing All Metadata, Scan Library Files, Empty Trash, Analyze, Optimize Database and Clean Bundles but Plex just kept the files and labeled it as "Unavailable". Re-scan the files and hopefully it will be fixed. There are custom agent plugins to scrape xml metadata like this one for ThumbGen. 9%) , the key though is un-matching some that are wrong and refresh meta. Create a separate media folder(s) for "orphan movies". The problem is Plex metadata is literally like 1. Plex's metadata contains thousands of very small files, so that means if your allocation size is too large, you'll be wasting a bunch of space. Not sure what changed. For reference I have about 225 tv shows and under 1000 movies (11TB and 3TV respectively). . There was a time when I could place a new copy in the same folder, have it scanned, and then delete the old copy and have Plex recognize it as the same movie with all metadata intact. Pity there isn't a setting to limit the metadata and set a 1. But that only works if you have MP4's. For Windows 11 its here: C:\users\(your user name)\appdata\local\plex media server\metadata\collections thanks also to u/Fribbtastic for the original answer You can delete the metadata folder in your Plex config folder which stores all of the metadata for all of your libraries. So Plex can't match the "new" file with the "old" one, and Plex thinks it's a brand new one, and adds it to your library. I've tried turning off the server, removing the video files from the server folder, then choosing the Empty Trash and Clean Bundles options from the menu before re-adding them, but it still shows the old metadata once it loads them. I find it easier to do that Plex dance. I used metaX to embed the data and cover art. Any thoughts? For questions and comments about the Plex Media Server. Empty Trash deletes associated metadata/thumbnails when a media file is no longer available. I've tried rewriting tags and filenames, as well as the "Plex Dance. But the primary source of my large # of files was in the PhotoTranscoder directory, which stores things like The issue I had was that I was using Plex Meta Manager which modifies tags such as collections/ratings and subsequently locks them. Now when I do that process, it treats it as a newly added movie as soon as I delete the old file. I have a decent sized library (~3000 movies, a few hundred TV shows) so my appdata folder was pretty big, a few dozen gigs. Then repeat a month or two later. I think by the looks of it I'm stuck with the behavior short term. I want to delete any and all meta data associated with it. So I was wondering, as a short term fix, if the movies have a metadata folder already within Plex's can I just put the XML files there myself? For example: I have an The load slow, they crash, if I try to pull up the URL to look at the metadata its takes a looooong time (like 2-3mins). Move the individual "orphan movie" folders to this new folder(s). I am currently ripping to FLAC a large CD library I have been meaning to do for 10 years. If you're using a legacy agent, uncheck Settings > Agents > Shows > [agent] > Local Media Assets (TV) (or move it down in the list). Feb 17, 2024 · Is there a script out there that will remove unused metadata from plex, my plex folder has ballooned over the years to almost 500gb, I am sue this If you do, then you are using far more space for your metadata than you need to. Only now you're using the newer scanner/agent. I have rebooted the VM and physical system. then i labeled my movies with year after it. Only to find my 210gb folder is now only down to 190GB. You can't even request metadata from a 3rd Party agent with a library that is set up with the Plex Official agents. All my files follow the Plex conventions to the letter. Nothing would cause those deleted files to disappear. Also filtered by . Hope this helps. Renaming them might be enough, but if not, you may need to do a full move (or worse case, a full Plex Dance) in order for Plex to generate new markers for them. I recently updated my Plex metadata agents to the new ones from Plex, and I'm not sure how exactly, but I believe it led to my appdata folder exploding in size. It was OK, but not the way it should be. There are about 198k files taking up 19. Do not delete the uploads and themes folders, but you may delete the . Unless you have very large server, the majority of the 62GB is likely Video Preview Thumbnails. 5mb limit on images. Then refresh all metadata for those library types. Libraries and metadata all load faster with the Plex data folder on an SSD. I am wondering whether to store the Plex metadata and config files on the SSD or HDDs? Figure out what metadata field it is pulling from and use EXIFTool to fix it. Make sure you've provided the correct Plex metadata directory. Current folder -> Movies folder -> Folder Named After the Movie -> Movie. The Plex Media Server is smart software that makes playing Movies, TV Shows and other media on your computer simple. 5mb it will ruin the db link with the metadata image. A little bit more info found out. Will I need to delete entire library and start over? I have 5 PLEX folders with the same title, but only one has content. You can't simply right click it and edit the details like an MP4 file. They removed it from the UI to "fix" a security issue. Be careful now. Aug 29, 2024 · I finally just moved the databases to another folder, reinstalled a different plex docker and moved the databases back. Some other factor might be changes such as renaming /removing libraries and other content that Plex may not clean up 100%. I can select them in folder view, and click delete, but nothing happens. and when i did the movies, they all showed up (at least 99. Thank you. If you don't want that then disable this in your library. 000 subfolders and is I then run a library scan to get a duplicate, then delete the old, fake file either through file management (another rescan will be required to remove the duplicate from Plex) or through the Plex library management for the file. Or you could not use local metadata in Plex and instead have it match so it’ll have clean names. mp4 or . You are, it's just the same container file. Also, is their an app on windows i can install that will constantly scan my downloads folder and automatically remove the metadata from any . It's the ibrary/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata folder to be specific. Move album folder outside of plex’s library folder. 3 - Add this new mega-folder from drive 3 to my librairies I assumed merged into one in step #1. mp4 Edit: For TV Shows, add an extra "Season" folder and split your episodes into the correct seasons. Plex screwed up and put the first instance of a show's 4 season as the first season. Once plex has all the new movies in the right spot, then finally delete extra files and empty plex trash. There's no simple way to do it that I know of. Then open Command Line, go to the folder containing all the Media Index Files (C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Media) and write the following: del /s *. I'm thinking that doing it that way would avoid losing metadata and having to have it all download again and also get wrong matches for stuff I've already edited and corrected. Move folder back in. I only have 1000+ films in my library, but this was disasterous. You can refer to here to find your Plex Media Server folder, the Metadata folder is under this directory. If the folder size is large, it might be filled with old backup files that are not getting deleted which may be an indication of a corrupted database since Plex is trying to avoid automatic deletion of a good, non-corrupted, database. old from the end). It doesn't delete the actual media file. is there a way i can make it smaller or have plex stop collecting it without deleting all my music from plex? I have alot of music, i can move it but 300GB is too much to be worth keeping for me. Of that 95k files are duplicates (different names & folders but the same size and hash) taking up 13GB. 303K subscribers in the PleX community. You bring up great points. I want to know if I can delete the metadata and media folder without losing my history? Jan 2, 2020 · I need a way to remove metadata and re-add it. I had the TV Series Frasier added without embedded metadata. Plex tends to not refresh music metadata well. ext as described here or possibly even use the Plex-Meta-Manager project to modify metadata based on a configuration instead of doing that in plex because, as you experienced yourself, Metadata changes will only be This will cause you issues. After the copy/paste was done, I went back to the local appdata folder and renamed the "Plex Media Server" folder to "Plex Media Server-OG". 10K tiny files the size of 1gb would take much longer than a 10gb movie. Only Windows and Plex server are installed. And instead adding checks to prevent the server from doing so, or adding checks to in the folder \AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Metadata\Movies delete content, update metadata, and all movies updated successfully, except manual poster movies with black cover. Then if you move the music somewhere else, such as local storage in your phone, the metadata travels with it. But the immense size of the metadata folder is bugging me. There are 80 files using 13GB Settings > Server > (Advanced) > "The path where local application data is stored" Just make that point to whatever drive/folder you want. The biggest culprit would be the video preview generation, so I would start by disabling those if space is an issue. \Metadata<library type> folder. If the files are being or seem to be removed the Plex would detect that change and scan the library again and mark every library item as unavailable if the associated files are not accessible anymore. I've deleted in Plex, deleted the files on my server etc etc but no matter what file I add back in, it seems to resort to the same behavior. The cache folder is exactly what it sounds like, it caches things so that they can be reused. nfo/. I can't think of what I can do, in XML I see the data of the poster added in the ones I added back in the day. I came back later and deleted it, once I was sure I had successfully completed the move. Since the metadata is stored in the metadata folder, you might be able to delete the metadata from there but they are obfuscated by hashes so you would need to check the database and find that particular thing you want to delete which is cumbersome for an artwork. This page is community-driven and not run by or affiliated with Plex, Inc. but all i see now are posters and stuff in that location did plex move all the metadata info to the 'com. It can help improve library navigation and loading media details, since a spinning disc isn't great at quickly reading the many small files that make up Plex's Metadata folder structure (like all the thumbnails Plex has to load when you scroll through your library). I copied out the database to check for errors, all clean. I even recreated the VM and reloaded Plex since the metadata folders are saved off on the SSD. It will take a big amount of space if you have the preview thumbnails enabled (I don’t know the exact translation, my web ui is in Italian but it’s the 5th option in settings->server->library) Also, Plex Meta Manager now takes about 12-15 hours to run, versus the 1-2 hours to run before the folder name change. You have to embed the metadata directly into the file. Even a half second of it not being there is sometimes enough to trigger plex to see it was removed and dump the Metadata. Wait for Plex to notice files are missing, Empty trash. Alternatively, you can also blow up the entire install and delete the entire folder structure for a fresh install. I suspect that if I have a script run to go and delete image files that are larger than 1. Turned out that by changing the Plex server's data folder to overlap with a library folder that had Camera Upload feature enabled, one could then exploit the Camera Upload feature to have the Plex server execute a malicious file. It sounds a lot longer to type than it is to do, I promise! As someone who has found it a pain to back up Plex's appdata in the past, it's been a breath of fresh air. ) It should be ignoring your xml files by default. This is for one specific reason - in order to have external subtitles properly recognised in Plex, you have to have the Local Media Assets agent not only on, but at the top It leads me to think a very valid feature request for Plex would be an easy built in way to relocate the App Data / Meta Data / Media folders to a NAS share as many people have large storage for the actual Media files, but smaller space for the server that is running Plex where all of this is normally stored. Then again, why? Do you have some sort of a problem? If not, don't worry about it. For questions and comments about the Plex Media Server. 4. Even the Metadata that Plex downloads for the items that you have in your library is either saved in the Database or stored in a specific location 15 votes, 11 comments. For example, if you look into the cache folder you will find Images in the PhotoTranscoder Folder which are the images that are displayed for all of your clients at different resolutions. nfo files but wasn't able to after making changes with PMM). (I have also seen where Plex actually needs to be restarted after all this - for some reason). thanks to u/pconwell for the more in depth instructions except the path for the plex metadata folder is for linux. At the moment, I'm trying to remove all the metadata from all my files so it can't misread anything. That will remove all metadata that was associated with your library items and have to be added again. Press the red button below to delete the thumbnails and claim back a big chunk of space. However, when I readded the series to Plex it keeps all of the old metadata. mp4 files Hello from the future! I'm stopping in to say this still works very well. I have had a few issues with Plex detecting files and not correctly loading the metadata, but there are different causes, and there is not a good way to troubleshoot other than trying things. My Metadata folder from my windows plex server consists of 3 subfolders - 'Collections', 'Movies', and 'TV Shows' I moved the entire Metadata folder with those subfolders inside into /Plug-in Support/Databases and turned the Plex container back on, analyzed and also did a metadata refresh on the library but unfortunately it didn't work. Those custom . They can have it but this way you avoid accidental deletion of files by Plex. So you can either have your Library set up with the 3rd party agents OR with the Plex official ones. The media index files locations will still exist in the Plex database. gitignore files I am new Plex user and I am pretty happy. Once the file is gone, then all the information for that file is deleted from Plex; it's like Plex never knew it existed. you can delete it. bif I deleted 30gb of images that I didn't need from that indexing process For questions and comments about the Plex Media Server. Plex would then start pulling the metadata again and start filling it up bit by bit, so deleting it would only be a temp solution. There's only one way plex will use custom metadata WITHOUT going into plex's own Edit Metadata screen for each and every movie and episode. Then force an Empty Trash. 4 - Remove old folder paths from drives 1 and 2, thus removing the duplicates. Setup your new folder structure within your current folder. I only have chapter thumbnails available. The Plex Media Server is smart software that makes… After updating a library (to detect unavailable files) and emptying the trash (to remove missing items from the library), you would want to use 'Clean Bundles' in order to free up disk space by deleting unused metadata files. The folders where you have your movies don’t need write permission. Everything should start refreshing metadata just as if the library was brand spanking new. First turn of the creation of Media Index Files in Plex. It's the only way to remove metadata from MKV files. i was afraid when they forced us to use there movie scanner i was sol. I know all the metadata for items used to be in xml files in "Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server\Metadata" (for synology nas). Remove the "orphan movie" media folder(s) from your library for regular movies. The last command will delete all Media Index Files from your Plex appdata folder. No, Plex isn't storing media there, but metadata for your media. true. I just ran a full scan of my raid drives and my TV folder is 5tb, where my movies folder is 1. Plex should automatically delete old backups and only keep the few most recent backups. Now I can’t get the cover art to load properly. Select this and within the Preferences of BleachBit set the custom folder to the PhotoTranscoder folder. It's noticeable. plugins. Then rescan, Plex will map the new locations for you and preserve the metadata. Dec 24, 2017 · Reset the file metadata: Move the actual media files out of your Plex folders (create a “temp” directory on the same drive and drag them there. Is it safe to remove the files in the Transcode folder? PMS reports that no media is synced and most of the files in the folder are ones that are rarely (if ever) watched. This will remove anything from agents no longer used, or no longer available from the agent. I had to restore my plex data folder from the previous Sunday's backup, which restored everything. I took a look at one of them and it's a movie poster for a kids movie. Easier than parsing the xmls is to delete (have a backup) of the . The newer media agent may be more efficient but it doesn't drop metadata folder by 90% If I enable thumbnails, my metadata folder would grow to over a terabyte. There's a couple things you can do. puzf dhetjmg hhcxga ajear mrtpj trchfzl xnv ysq umfcqxhr tdd