Plex Naming Schemes

[rednoah]

Plex Naming Standard

Plex has strict standards for naming and organizing your media files.

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Movies/Avatar (2009)/Avatar (2009)
TV Shows/Alias/Season 01/Alias - S01E01 - Truth Be Told

The {plex} binding which will give you the appropriate Plex path for movies, TV episodes, Anime episodes and music files:

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{plex}

Make sure to Disable Local Media Assets for all your media libraries to make Plex not give preference to the embedded media title.


Since the {plex} binding will give you a File object, it's easy to reuse some path components and omit others. {plex.name} and {plex.tail} are particularly useful if you want to rename files in place or if you want the {plex} path without the top-level Movies or TV Shows folder.

e.g. Avatar (2009)

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{plex.name}

e.g. Firefly/Season 01/Firefly - S01E01 - Serenity

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{plex.tail}

e.g. Firefly/Firefly - S01E01 - Serenity

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{plex[1]}/{plex[3]}

e.g. Movies/Avatar (2009)/Avatar (2009) by James Cameron [720p, x264, AC3].eng

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{plex.derive{" by $director"}{" [$vf, $vc, $ac]"}}

plex.derive() can be used to insert additional information after the file name but before the subtitle language suffix and file extension.






Kodi Naming Standard

The {kodi} binding and the {plex} binding work exactly the same, with slightly different implementation details, e.g. SxE formatting and multi-episode formatting.



Custom Naming Schemes

If you need to make very specific customizations to the standard Plex naming scheme, you'll want you write your own format expression so you have full control over all the bits and pieces. You can get started by copying the following examples and modifying them to your liking.

Movies

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Movies/{n} ({y})/{n} ({y}){' CD'+pi}{'.'+lang}

TV Series

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TV Shows/{n}/{episode.special ? 'Specials' : 'Season '+s.pad(2)}/{n} - {episode.special ? 'S00E'+special.pad(2) : s00e00} - {t.replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, /'/).replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replacePart(', Part $1')}{'.'+lang}

Anime

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Anime/{primaryTitle}/{primaryTitle} - {sxe} - {t.replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, /'/).replacePart(', Part $1')}

Music

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Music/{n}/{album+'/'}{pi.pad(2)+'. '}{artist} - {t}

[Gruff10]

Hi,

NOOB here

Using

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{plex.derive{" [$vf.$vc.$ac]"}}

I find that the TV series 24 (Twenty Four) fails because the fullstops in its episode titles are being replaced (see output below).

https://ibb.co/87vTcrF

How can I get around this?

Thanks.

[rednoah]

Yes, the {plex} format does indeed strip trailing "." characters from the Plex path. In your case, that's unnecessary, but the {plex} binding can't know that.

e.g.

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$ filebot -list --q 24 --format {plex} --filter "s == 1 && e <= 3"
TV Shows/24/Season 01/24 - S01E01 - 12.00 A.M. - 1.00 A.M
TV Shows/24/Season 01/24 - S01E02 - 1.00 A.M. - 2.00 A.M
TV Shows/24/Season 01/24 - S01E03 - 2.00 A.M. - 3.00 A.M

If want to preserve the trailing "." then you can use a full custom format such as this:

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TV Shows/{n}/Season {s.pad 2}/{n} - {s00e00} - {t} [{vf}.{vc}.{ac}]

[Gruff10]

Thanks. That worked, though the ":"s in the episode titles are a pain as well. At least the Validate button clears them

[rednoah]

Additional customizations like this will do the job:

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{n.colon(' - ')}

The {plex} format does take care of these corner cases already, and if you need all of those but if you want more control, then you can start with a format such as this, and then modify it to your needs:

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TV Shows/{n}/{episode.special ? 'Specials' : 'Season '+s.pad(2)}/{n} - {episode.special ? 'S00E'+special.pad(2) : s00e00} - {t.replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, /'/).replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replacePart(', Part $1')}{'.'+lang}

The .replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/) bit is responsible for removing trailing !?. so you could just cut that bit.

[Kopernikus]

Hi,

If I use:

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{plex.derive {" [$vf.$vc.$ac]"}}

I get

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/volume1/video/Movies/xXx (2002)/xXx (2002) [480p.x264.AC3].mkv

but how to I get

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/volume1/video/Movies/xXx (2002) [480p.x264.AC3]/xXx (2002) [480p.x264.AC3].mkv

or

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/volume1/video/Movies/xXx (2002) [480p.x264.AC3]/xXx (2002).mkv

I want to use the Plex format, but to now the video format so I now for example when I replace a SD by HD version of the same movie.

Thx

[rednoah]

There's no convenience method for this particular use case.

You'll either have to
(A) write your own custom format without using the {plex} binding at all, or
(B) write your own custom format using bits and pieces of the {plex} binding as necessary.

e.g.

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Movies/{plex[1]}{" [$vf.$vc.$ac]"}/{plex[2]}{" [$vf.$vc.$ac]"}

Either way, you'll no longer be strictly adhering to the Plex naming scheme, although it'll probably work.

[guyrivera]

There's no convenience method for this particular use case.

You'll either have to
(A) write your own custom format without using the {plex} binding at all, or
(B) write your own custom format using bits and pieces of the {plex} binding as necessary.

e.g.

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Movies/{plex[1]}{" [$vf.$vc.$ac]"}/{plex[2]}{" [$vf.$vc.$ac]"}

Either way, you'll no longer be strictly adhering to the Plex naming scheme, although it'll probably work.

Thanks a lot - it works!

[fud18]

I recently noticed that some of my movies were not getting their meta data in Plex unless I manually matched the titles. What I noticed was preventing this was having A|An|The at the beginning. According to Plex's website/forums if you place anything after a parenthesis it will not detect it which allows the files to match correctly. Below are the naming formats I have tried with examples. Any help would be greatly appreciated to get my naming to work like Example 3.
Example 1:

• The Fly (1986) is matched correctly in Plex, but I want proper sort with the The at the end
  Filebot naming script: {n.replace(':',' - ')} ({y})

Example 2:

• Fly, The (1986) is not matched correctly in Plex.
  Filebot naming script: {n.sortName('$2, $1').replace(':',' - ')} ({y})

Example 3 (What I would like): Fly (1986), The

• If the current file does not begin with "A|An|The" the naming is done incorrectly as such
  Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986) = Hamburger: The Motion Picture (1986), Hamburger: The Motion Picture
  The Fly (1986) = Fly (1986), The
  Filebot naming script: {n.sortName('$2').replace(':',' - ')} ({y}){n.sortName(', $1').replace(':',' - ')}

[rednoah]

AFAIK, what you would like is is not what Plex would like to see:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/your-media/

{plex} is the way to go. It may not be what you want, but it'll be what Plex wants and expects. You can do things differently, and maybe it'll mostly work, or maybe it'll sometimes not work, either way, no guarantees once you start ignoring the standard if favor of your own preferences.

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{plex}

[fud18]

Thanks for the reply rednoah, I have tried that, but I don't want all the A|An|The's lumped together...makes it a real nightmare to try and remove files if I am bouncing around all over the place. I will face the consequences of the way I want it named if someone can just tell me how to the the A|An|The from the beginning of the title to after the date as provided in my example. I have tested it and it works flawlessly that's why I want to do it plus then I can find them easy in windows explorer to remove movies I no longer want.

[rednoah]

You could do n.sortName() to remove the A and The altogether, since that'll probably mess with Plex the least:

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n.sortName()

[fud18]

But how do I add the removed part back after the (year)?

[rednoah]

Assuming that Plex ignores everything after the Name (Year) part, you can try this:

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ny.sortName('$2, $1')

[fud18]

That worked like a charm. Thanks so much rednoah!!!!!