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+--- Thread: Too many subtitle files! (/t-too-many-subtitle-files)
Too many subtitle files! - HankH - 2025-07-08
Hi all - I see lots of subtitle related posts, but none seem to match my problem - hopefully this hasn't been asked before.
I have subtitle settings for my 'Action Movies' library as shown below - English, using Open Subtitles and with all the options checked.
And yet, I'm getting two (probably related) problems in the file folder for that library.
Firstly - as shown in the attachment, I'm getting multiple subtitle files for the same movie - these are dated several days apart and just keep growing - each new file has a new eng.x added into the file name each time! Why does it keep adding new files? How can I just hold one file for these movies? I'm fed up of having to go into my folder and manually clear out thousands of unwanted .srt files.
Secondly - I have dozens of movies that don't need English subs because they are in English - like Point Break - but Jellyfin insists on downloading (multiple, as above) subtitle files for them. This isn't consistent though, as I have hundreds of movies that have an English audio track but don't have subs downloaded for them. In some cases the movies that are having subs downloaded have an audio track just named Track1, so I initially thought Jellyfin must be assuming it wasn't an english audio and went off and downloaded the sub for it - however, on closer inspection I found that there are plenty of movies with an audio track named Track1 without sub files for them, so I'm doubly confused now. On the flip side, in every case I've checked, a movie with an audio track that says Track1 - English, does not have a sub file downloaded for it.
My Jellyfin server is running on a Windows 11 laptop, with an external drive attached via USB.
Thanks, Hank
RE: Too many subtitle files! - theguymadmax - 2025-07-08
1. Seems like a bug, already described here: https://forum.jellyfin.org/t-keeps-downloading-subtitles-that-have-already-been-grabbed - no solution. I would suggest testing out a library with individual folders for each media item and check if that helps.
Movie Library:
Movies\
Point Break (2015)\
Point Break (2015).mp4
Police Story (1985)\
Police Story (1985).mp4
2. The second option, "Skip if the default track matches the downloaded language" and your statement "...a movie with an audio track that says Track1 - English, does not have a sub file downloaded for it" should explain why this is happening.
RE: Too many subtitle files! - HankH - 2025-07-09
Thanks for the reply and good spot on the related incident - doesn't look like the other poster logged it as an issue with the plugin author, so I may do that.
Not sure I have the time or energy to update all the movies with a new audio track name, so will try your other suggestion and create a new test library and see if folders sort it out.