The scanners and metadata agents used by Plex will work best when your major types of content are separated from each other. We strongly recommend separating movie and television content into separate main directories. For instance, you might use something like this:
/Media
/Movies
movie content
/Music
music content
/TV Shows
television content
Warning!: Plex will do its best to appropriately find and match content. However, a failure to separate content such as movies and TV shows may result in unexpected or incorrect behavior.
If you have trailers, interviews, behind the scenes videos, or other “extras” type content for your movies, you can add those. To use these, ensure they are named and organized, and that the Local Media Assets source is enabled and ordered correctly.
Related Page: Cinema Trailers, Extras, & Related Albums
Enable Local Assets Plex Movie Agent
If using the new Plex Movie agent you only need to enable “Use local Assets” in the libraries advanced settings
Related Page: Advanced settings Plex Movie Agent
Enable “Local Media Assets” (Legacy Agents)
For the Personal Media, Plex Movie (Legacy) and The Movie Database legacy agents “Local Media Assets” is an Agent source that loads local media files or embedded metadata for a media item. To do this, ensure the Agent source is enabled and topmost in the list:
- Launch the Plex Web App
- Choose Settings from the top right of the Home screen
- Select your Plex Media Server from the settings sidebar
- Choose Agents
- Choose the Library Type and Agent you want to change
- Ensure Local Media Assets is checked
- Ensure Local Media Assets is topmost in the list
Related Page: Metadata Agents
Adding Local Trailers and Extras
When you have your own trailers or extras media files, you can organize them in one of two ways to use them with Plex. Either put them “inline”, alongside the movie (in the same directory as the movie), or in a subdirectory of the movie’s directory.
Tip!: If you’re making use of multiple editions for movies, you need to make sure that each edition is stored in its own named movie directory. The local trailers and extras can then be placed inside that specific edition folder, like normal. See information on naming movie files/folders.
Inline
Local extras can be located alongside the main movie file in a directory named for the movie. They’re indicated by using specific naming at the end of the filename. Local inline extras will be detected and used if named and stored as follows:
Movies/MovieName (Release Date)/Descriptive_Name-Extra_Type.ext
Where -Extra_Type
is one of:
- -behindthescenes
- -deleted
- -featurette
- -interview
- -scene
- -short
- -trailer
- -other
Note: The filename must end in the -Extra_Type
value exactly. The hyphen is important and you cannot have spaces after it.
Tip!: Besides the extras themselves, you can only have the main movie file (or other local media assets) in the directory. If you have multiple versions of the movie together, use the “Organized in Subdirectories” method below.
It is recommended that you provide some sort of descriptive name for the extra before specifying the type at the end of the filename.
/Movies
/Avatar (2009)
Avatar (2009).mkv
Arrival-scene.mp4
Bar Fight-deleted.mp4
Performance Capture-behindthescenes.mkv
Sigourney Weaver-interview.mp4
Stephen Lang-interview.mp4
Teaser Trailer-trailer.mp4
Theatrical Trailer #1-trailer.mp4
Theatrical Trailer #2-trailer.avi
Organized in Subdirectories
You can organize your local extras into specific subdirectories inside the main directory named for the movie. Extras will be detected and used if named and stored as follows:
Movies/MovieName (Release Date)/Extra_Directory_Type/Descriptive_name.ext
Where Extra_Directory_Type
is one of:
Behind The Scenes
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Interviews
Scenes
Shorts
Trailers
Other
It is recommended that you provide some sort of descriptive name for the extras filenames.
/Movies
/Avatar (2009)
Avatar (2009).mkv
/Behind The Scenes
Performance Capture.mkv
/Deleted Scenes
Bar Fight.mp4
Lost Sister.mkv
/Interviews
Sigourney Weaver.mp4
Stephen Lang.mp4
/Scenes
Arrival.mp4
/Trailers
Teaser Trailer.mp4
Theatrical Trailer #1.mp4
Theatrical Trailer #2.mp4