Set up advice: directories and navigation

[malebron]

Hello - I'm new to Jellyfin, and wondering how to organize directories and file-names to work the way I want.

I have collected many terabytes of media over the years, much of which does not meet the required naming conventions. Fixing that is a daunting task (one of the reasons I resisted moving to a media server like JF for so long)

My plan is to start with an empty Jellyfin instance and slowly move things across piece-by-piece, renaming files (if needed) as I go. The question is (i) how to organize directories - and (ii) can I set things up to browse like I used to?


Today my media is organized by nested directories. I use Kodi simply as a front end to navigate the directories and play the files. For example:
  TV-Shows => UK Drama => Mysteries => Cozy => Poirot => Series 8 => Poirot - 8x01 - Evil Under the Sun - David Suchet - (2001).avi
OR:
  Documentaries => Science => Space => Solar System => Mars => Mars Secret Science => Mars.The.Secret.Science.Series.1.4of6.Mars.Deepest.Mysteries.720p.mkv



So far, my research suggests that many people just put everything in one giant folder (like "TV shows") and let metadata do the work. Maybe with tags?? I can't imagine how that would work. Sounds like that might be good if you're searching for a specific thing, but what about browsing? It feels like you'd have a lot of scrolling to do! Is it possible to set up genres, categories and sub-categories?

Perhaps I'm out of sync with how other people consume media these days (hey, I still listen to music by album)  I'd love to hear how others have approached this and set things up.

Thanks!

[TheDreadPirate]

The two examples you provided are not supported. Both the folder structure and folder/file name.

https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/shows/
https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/movies/

The folders containing your shows must be immediately below the folder you point the library at.

[malebron]

The two examples you provided are not supported.  Both the folder structure and folder/file name.

https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/shows/
https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/server/media/movies/

The folders containing your shows must be immediately below the folder you point the library at.

Thank you for the reply, but the main point of my question is "how I can get the functionality I'm used to, in Jellyfin?". (How would I browse all my cozy mysteries, for example?)

As explained, In my current (non Jellyfin) system my ability to browse and find the things I want is based on the way my directories are organized - but I understand Jellyfin works differently. To clarify, I'm not planning to run Jellyfin on my old file structure.  Rather, I will start with a blank slate and plan to copy things incrementally to whatever structure Jellyfin requires.

I understand I need a flat structure (thanks for confirming) -- but in that case I don't understand how things get organized. Is it by tags?  If so, do I need to spend time tagging everything? How do I show a selection of media based on criteria or genre, for example? Search doesn't seem to do that.

I'm sorry if these seem to be dumb questions. It's my first time with a media server like JF.  I'm excited to finally move into the 21st century, but trying to get my head around a different approach to what I'm used to.

For now, I'm experimenting with test libraries containing just a few files to figure out how to things set up. I don't want to go down the wrong path and need to change everything later.

I appreciate all pointers, explanations and shared experiences.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Generally, all your media will be sorted alphabetically under any library. If you want to find something specific, you have to search alphabetically or by typing in the exact name of the title in the search bar.

Now to answer your question, it's different per client. As in, it's up to the client to determine how you can filter down what is shown from a library on your screen.

In the web GUI, when you go to a library, there will be an icon that looks like an upside-down triangle made out of three stripes. Opening that will show you all the filter options. There, you can select what you want to see and the options presented is pulled from the metadata associated with each file. You can filter to show titles with certain genre(s) or tags for example. Same for watched or unwatched status. I believe that there is work in the future to make these filter selections remain because they reset when you leave the library screen.

There has also been people that keep requesting the ability to search by genre or tags, but that's not currently possible. You're only allowed to search based off title name right now. I don't know if/when this will change. This means that right now, you will be presented with a large drop-down list of all the genre or tags that exist in a library when you want to filter. I'm assuming that with how you organize your library, you'll have a very large list of these, which means you'll have to do a lot of scrolling to find the right thing you want to filter by.

Generally, the idea behind Jellyfin's setup is that you open the library that you're interested in, then search for the specific thing you want to watch. So your guided to sort your media based on library type. So one library for movies, one for shows, one for cartoons, etc. You can always get more specific, like one for documentary movies, one for superhero movies, one for western, etc. The issue then is that your homepage will get cluttered with libraries, but it's usable. Also, you can't group multiple libraries into a collection.

Personally, I wish there was an option to randomize what is shown on a library when you open it. It would make browsing your library more fun/interesting.

[malebron]

If you want to find something specific, you have to search alphabetically or by typing in the exact name of the title in the search bar.

Unless it's something recent, I'm unlikely to remember the title! I may be looking for "that cool documentary about the Mars helicopter I watched a few years ago". It may not even have the word "Mars" in the title. My current setup might  be antiquated and look like crap, but finding that would be a snap. In Jellyfin, as I understand it so far, I'm not sure where I would start.  I guess I would need to have tagged it with keywords? Can you even do that?

Perhaps my situation is unusual, but I can't imagine it's unique. Over many years I have accumulated so many terabytes of stuff that, to keep things manageable, I keep breaking things down into finer and finer granularity.  For example, just under Documentaries I now have 21 categories, and each of those has multiple sub-subcategories (Space, for example, has 25 sub-subcategories). The files and series live inside each of those.

A lot of the time I find things by browsing. I find all kinds of cool things I'd forgotten I had! I'd love to have a way to do that on Jellyfin.

I've seen mention of the terms "collections" and "groups" - not sure what they do. Any possibilities there?

In the web GUI, when you go to a library, there will be an icon that looks like an upside-down triangle made out of three stripes.

I see the menu item "filter", not the triangle.  Unfortunately nothing useful there (technical stuff, watched or not). No tags.

Now to answer your question, it's different per client. As in, it's up to the client to determine how you can filter down what is shown from a library on your screen.

Interesting. I thought clients just got whatever was provided by the web server.

I will be mostly watching on an LG TV. (I read that the app for that is just a wrapper for the web GUI)

Thanks

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Before I respond, why not try out Jellyfin fully to see how it would work in your case? Just make a test server, and upload a bunch of content to see how it will get sorted. You don't even need to upload actual legit files. All Jellyfin looks for is that the files are video files and that they have a name. So you can just copy and past a small video file (each with a different name) to simulate your files and see how they're sorted for you.

I guess I would need to have tagged it with keywords? Can you even do that?

Yes, Jellyfin allows for tags to be used. When you edit metadata, there is an option towards the bottom where tags can be added (if not auto populated by your metadata sources). You can also add extra tags (or remove them) manually if you're not happy with the ones added automatically. Though right now, you can't mass manually add tags to a bunch of titles at once.

I've seen mention of the terms "collections" and "groups" - not sure what they do. Any possibilities there?

Jellyfin lets you group multiple shows/movies into a single collection. You can browse multiple collections in the collections page. Popular things to group together are things like all Star Wars movies into a single collection or all Marvel movies into one too. Collections are presented as titles and sorted alphabetically too.

In the web GUI, when you go to a library, there will be an icon that looks like an upside-down triangle made out of three stripes.

I see the menu item "filter", not the triangle.  Unfortunately nothing useful there (technical stuff, watched or not). No tags.

It's up to the client to decide which icon is used for the filter button. Should be the same thing if you found it. You will only be presented with options to filter with if they exist in the metadata from the library's content.

Now to answer your question, it's different per client. As in, it's up to the client to determine how you can filter down what is shown from a library on your screen.

Interesting. I thought clients just got whatever was provided by the web server.

I will be mostly watching on an LG TV. (I read that the app for that is just a wrapper for the web GUI)

Thanks

I apologize. I should have worded that differently. What I meant when I wrote that is that it's up to the client to present the filtering button. If your client is just showing the web GUI, then you'll most likely be able to filter. All clients have equal access to the contents of the server. It's up to the client's developers to enable the features and determine how they'll be used.


Is there a reason you want to use Jellyfin? The biggest things you'll gain from Jellyfin is the show/movie cover artwork, watched status, and streaming/transcoding to clients. Since your method of sorting is really specialized to how you enjoy it, you'll be losing that level of comfort by switching to Jellyfin. How have you been consuming your media library so far? You can keep your sorting by just browsing to it on a basic file explorer and opening it up with media players like VLC or MPV. You can always connect a small PC/laptop to a TV to view content on your TV. If you go this route, all you'll need to do is have your media hosted on a basic file server that your "TV PC" will open on its file explorer. You can even connect to it outside of your house with VPN services like Tailscale. You'll only lose the pretty artwork and the watched status of things.

[Duvel]

If you have TBs organized like that, your reorg path will be long and tedious if you want to use Jellyfin.
You SHOULD have root folders for each of you libraries, and in each of them should contain one subfolder per movie/docu/series. It really can't work another way.

I would suggest you to get tools to help you with that, to begin with Radarr and Sonarr that will do a great a job in reorganizing things for you and to rename the folders the way they should. I highly recommend that you configure Radarr and Sonarr so they add in each folder's name the imdb/tvdb/tmdb IDs so you are certain that all media centers will properly find what it is and download the right metadata for them.Proper folder naming is the most important and there are a lot of tutorials to help you with that.

In order to not break your current organization if things goes wrong, Ideally you should copy everything on a new disk, and then Plug Radarr/Sonarr to start the reorg. Just begin with one subfolder to test and then when you have understood how they work, and tweaked the config, scan/reorg your entire library.

This will be long. But at the end you will hopefully be very happy with the results !

[malebron]

Thanks guys!

Yes, I'm doing exactly what you suggest and setting up a "test environment" to figure stuff out.

My old files will stay where they are - my idea is to build a new Jellyfin environment with an optimized file layout. I'll copy stuff over little by little.

Right now I use Kodi as my media viewer, but in a very basic way (more like a file explorer). I don't get any nice cover art, but at least I can track what I've watched.

Why Jellyfin? All the reasons you suggest - beautiful UI, cover art etc. etc. I also share files and stream to friends. (Right now. I send a link to the specific show which they stream via Subsonic). Jellyfin would be a much nicer experience (and supported!).

What stopped me before was the effort to migrate and rename everything. I always assumed I'd be able to search, browse, etc. anyway i wanted.

Thanks Duval, I'll take a look at Radarr and Sonarr - I thought they were only to do with downloading, not re-organizing, so maybe that will help with the first problem. I'm really surprised to find so many limitations on viewing and sorting though. I'll keep experimenting - there has to be a way!