The Naming Conventions I Use for My Media Files

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When adding media to your Plex server the most important aspect of having Plex properly detect and display the correct metadata for the media is the naming convention used for the media files.

Most problems related to incorrect media matching by Plex can be related to incorrect naming conventions.

In this post, I will explain how I name my movies, TV shows, and music files in Plex to ensure I get Plex to download the correct metadata without any issues.

The Naming Conventions I Use for My Media Files for Plex

A few thoughts

Before I go into my naming conventions, you may want to first read over the naming conventions used by Plex. They have been outlined here:

Naming my media files doesn't take much time as I rip my Blu-ray discs and I also rip my audio discs, so I make sure I add the proper naming conventions when I rip my media.

After ripping my media, I automatically have Plex scan the new media, or in the case of Handbrake, have Handbrake make a partial scan request, so when my media encoding is completed, it is ready to go in Plex.

With the proper naming conventions, my media is available automatically after ripping the discs.

With that in mind, I'll discuss my movie, TV show, and music naming conventions in the next few sections.

Movies

I use a specific contention for naming my movie files. The convention is as follows:

/Movies/Movie Name (Release Year) {edition-Edition Name}\Movie Name (Release Year) [video.audio codecs] {edition-Edition Name}{source-id}.ext

Each part of the naming convention is as follows:

Movie Name (Release Year): This is the most basic naming convention used for movies. It is the name of the movie followed by the four-digit year when the movie was released.
[video.audio codecs]: This is a list of the video and audio codecs for the movie. This provides information about the codecs by simply looking at the file name. This comes in handy to filter out movies by either a video or audio codec when using the Get All Movies API endpoint.
{edition-Edition Name}: This part of the name is only used if the movie is a specific edition. Most of my movies won't have this part of the file name.
{source-id}: To make it easier for Plex to find and download the correct metadata, I include an online source along with the ID associated with the movie. For movies, Plex uses either The Movie Database (tmdb) or IMDB (imdb) for metadata.
ext: The extension of the movie file.

Example

For the movie Star Wars: A New Hope, released in 1977, I have two editions of the movie on my server: the traditional Blu-ray release and the original theatrical release.

The traditional release is 1080p, encoded with H264, and contains 3 audio tracks: AAC, AC3, and DTS-HD.

The original theatrical release is 480p, encoded with H264, and contains a single AAC audio track.

The IMDB ID is tt0076759.

On my Plex server, the two editions are organized and named as follows:

/Movies/Star Wars - Episode 4 (1977)
    /Star Wars - Episode 4 (1977) [1080p.h246.aac.ac3.dts-hd] {imdb-tt0076759}.mkv
/Movies/Star Wars - Episode 4 (1977) {edition-Original Theatrical Release}
    /Star Wars - Episode 4 (1977) [480p.h264.aac] {edition-Original Theatrical Release} {imdb-tt0076759}

Since the 1080p edition of Star Wars is just the regular Blu-ray edition, I don't include the edition in the file name.

TV shows

TV shows have an additional folder level than movies and also use a different naming convention. For TV shows, I use the following naming convention:

/TV Shows/TV Show Name {source-id}/Season NN/Show Name - sNNeXX [video.audio codecs].ext

TV Show Name: The name of the TV show.
{source-id}: The name of the online source with the ID related to the TV show. Plex can use TheTVDB (tvdb), The Movie Database (tmdb), or IMDB (imdb) for metadata.
Season NN: The word 'Season' followed by the two-digit season number.
sNNeXX: The NN represents the two-digit season number, and XX represents the two-digit episode number.
[video.audio codecs]: This is a list of the video and audio codecs for the movie. This provides information about the codecs by simply looking at the file name. This comes in handy to filter out movies by either a video or audio codec when using the Get All TV Shows API endpoint.
ext: The extension of the TV show episode file.

Example

For the TV show Downton Abbey I use the following structure and naming conventions. Some episodes have been excluded for brevity.

I use the TMDB ID of 33907 to indicate to Plex the metadata I would like to use. I reviewed all three online sources and found the TMDB data to be more to my liking. When it comes to TV shows, sometimes the online sources may arrange the episodes differently, so you may want to review each source and determine which ID you would like to use.

The structure below shows Season 00 (Specials) along with Season 1 and Season 6. There are two episodes showing in each season.

All episodes are 1080p and encoded using H264.

The episodes on each Blu-ray disc had the same stereo DTS-MA track, so I included an AAC stereo track and the original DTS-MA track in each episode file.

/TV Shows/Downton Abbey {tmdb-33907}
    / Season 00
        /Downton Abbey - s00e02 [1080p.h264.aac.dtsma].mkv
        /Downton Abbey - s00e03 [1080p.h264.aac.dtsma].mkv
    / Season 01
        /Downton Abbey - s01e01 [1080p.h264.aac.dtsma].mkv
        /Downton Abbey - s01e02 [1080p.h264.aac.dtsma].mkv
    / Season 06
        /Downton Abbey - s06e01 [1080p.h264.aac.dtsma].mkv
        /Downton Abbey - s06e02 [1080p.h264.aac.dtsma].mkv

Music

For my music, I stay with the conventional naming conventions for music albums, artists, and tracks.

The naming convention I use is:

/Music/Artist/Album/NN Track Name.ext

Artist: The name of the artist.
Album: The name of the album.
Track Name: The name of the track preceded by the two-digit track number so the tracks are sorted by their track number.
ext: The extension of the audio file.

Unlike with movies and TV shows, I don't include the audio codec used in the file name as the extension will tell me the codec used to encode the file.

Example

The folder and file structure as well as the naming convention is simple. The structure provides organization for the artist and albums so it is easy to find the track I am looking for.

Since the extension determines the audio codec, I can see that by looking at the file name. When I rip my audio CDs I always encode the audio in FLAC, so all my music is encoded in one format.

An example naming convention is as follows:

/Music/Foo Fighters
    /The Colour And The Shape
        /01 Doll.flac
        /02 Monkey Wrench.flac
        ...
        /12 Walking After You.flac
    /There is Nothing Left To Lose
        /01 Stacked Actors.flac
        /02 Breakout
        ...
        /11 M.I.A..flac

By using correct naming conventions for your media files you will ensure Plex correctly identifies your media and downloads the correct metadata.

Paul Salmon

Started managing a Plex server in November 2014 and has been sharing his experience and what he has learned on Plexopedia. He is exploring and documenting the Plex API to help automate tasks for Plex to reduce the management effort of his server.

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