Your Plex Media Server can be scheduled to perform certain maintenance tasks for you. Tasks that can be included in maintenance:
- Automatically back up your critical watched/unwatched/progress viewstates for your Libraries
- Optimize the database
- Clean up remnants of removed Library items
- Refresh local metadata to pick up subtitles, artwork, and more
- Perform a standard Library Update on your Libraries
- Keep your media analysis up to date
- Keep music libraries up to date with concert info and popular tracks
How to Enable Scheduled Tasks
Turning on your Scheduled Tasks is easy. In your Plex Web App, simply go to Settings > Server > Scheduled Tasks.
- Choose the start and end times for maintenance (these are based off the local time on your Plex Media Server)
- Choose the tasks you wish to enable
- Save the changes
Most people will want to schedule the maintenance to occur either while they sleep or perhaps while they’re away from home at work. Typically, a 3-4 hour window for maintenance is more than sufficient.
Note: Due to the way scheduling is calculated, tasks which occur every three days or every week may not occur for the first time until a few days after scheduling is enabled.
Related Page: Scheduled Tasks
Available Tasks
Optional Settings
There are multiple tasks available that you can have performed during maintenance. We recommend leaving the default settings checked, aside from choosing the start and end time appropriate to you.
- Schedule the beginning and ending time
- Back up database every three days
- Optimize database every week
- Remove old bundles every week
- Remove old cache files every week
- Refresh local metadata every three days
- Update all libraries during maintenance
- Upgrade media analysis during maintenance
- Refresh (music) metadata periodically
- Perform extensive media analysis during maintenance
- Backup directory location (advanced)
For details on the available settings, see the documentation for the Plex Media Server settings.
Related Page: Scheduled Tasks
Other Tasks Performed During Maintenance
In addition to the settings you can enable or disable directly, there are some other tasks that might also get performed during the maintenance period.
Chapter Thumbnail Generation
Depending on your setting for the Generate chapter thumbnails setting, they may get created during the maintenance period as part of your scheduled tasks. You may notice increased CPU usage when the thumbnails are generated, particularly on lower-powered systems.
Related Page: Library
Video Preview Thumbnail Generation
If you have set your server to generate Video Preview Thumbnails, those may get created during the maintenance period. Creation of these thumbnails is an intensive process and may cause high CPU usage during the generation.
Related Page: Video Preview Thumbnails
Related Page: Library