Set up advice: directories and navigation

[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.