Add your libraries

A library is a name, a type, and one or more folders on disk. The server watches those folders, works out what each file is, and fetches the artwork and descriptions.

Settings → Libraries → New library.

Movies and TV shows go in separate libraries

The scanner treats the two completely differently, and a single folder holding both is the most common reason a film ends up filed as a TV show.

You can point one library at several folders, which is what you want when your films are spread across three drives. Add them all to the same Movies library rather than making three libraries.

How to name things

You do not have to rename anything. The scanner is reasonably forgiving, and when it gets something wrong you can fix it in a few clicks. But if you are laying out a library from scratch, this is what works best.

Films

One folder per film, named with the year:

Films/
  Arrival (2016)/
    Arrival (2016).mkv
  Blade Runner 2049 (2017)/
    Blade Runner 2049 (2017).mkv

The year is what does the work. Dune is ambiguous; Dune (1984) and Dune (2021) are not.

Flat files in one folder work too. A folder per film is only better because it gives extras and subtitle files somewhere to live.

TV shows

One folder per show, one folder per season:

TV/
  Slow Horses (2022)/
    Season 01/
      Slow Horses - S01E01 - Failure's Contagious.mkv
      Slow Horses - S01E02 - Work Experience.mkv
    Season 02/

S01E01 in the filename is the surest thing. But the Season 01 folder is a real signal too, so inside one the scanner also accepts 1x01, and a plain trailing number like Sasuke 43 - Night 1.mkv. A folder called Specials is season 0.

If a show has no season folders at all, and the filenames carry no episode numbering, the scanner has nothing to go on. That is the case that needs manual identification.

Two cuts of the same film

Put the edition in the filename in curly brackets and both files land on one title rather than becoming two entries:

Blade Runner (1982) {edition-Theatrical}.mkv
Blade Runner (1982) {edition-Final Cut}.mkv

Pressing play then offers you the choice. There is more on this in Getting the details right.

Scanning

Adding a library starts a scan immediately, and you can watch the progress on the home screen. Nothing blocks. The first scan of a large library takes a while, because every file gets probed for its video and audio streams and then looked up for artwork.

After that, the server rescans on its own at an interval you set (Settings → Libraries → Scan interval), and you can force one at any time from Settings → Libraries → the library’s ⚙ → Rescan.

A rescan only does work for things that changed. New files get added, missing files get removed from the library, and everything else is left alone.

Careful. Removing a file from disk removes it from your library on the next scan, along with the fact that you watched it. Moving files around inside a library is fine as long as you use the built-in Move library tool, which keeps your history. See Looking after a library.

Extras, subtitles, and things you do not want scanned

• Subtitle files next to a video (.srt, .ass, .sub) are picked up automatically. Language codes in the name (Film.en.srt) are used.
• Sample files, trailers, and extras with the usual naming conventions are skipped rather than filed as films.
• Anything else you want ignored, keep out of the library’s folders. There is no per-file exclusion list.

Browsing a big library

Home screen shelves show the first 20 of anything, with a See all at the end of the row and the shelf title itself as a link. Both open the library view, which is a poster grid with 50 at a time and more loading as you scroll.

The grid has sort and filter controls at the top. The filters are the same vocabulary as smart collections: genre, actor, director, studio, release date, rating, and watch state. Filters reset every time you open the grid. They are for finding something now, not for a saved view. If you want a saved view, make it a smart collection.

Sorting

Each library and each collection remembers its own sort, per person. Yours does not change what anyone else sees.

Set it from a shelf’s ⚙ → Sort, or in the library view. The options:

Sort	Order
Title	A to Z
Date added	Newest first
Release date	Newest first
Rating	Highest first
Custom	Collections only. The order you dragged them into

For a TV show, “release date” means the most recent episode that aired, not the year the show started. So a returning show sorts as new when the new season lands, which is what you actually wanted.

Anything with no rating or no date sorts to the end rather than to the front.

Your sort choice follows you to every device, because it lives with your profile rather than with the browser you set it in.