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Have hundreds of entries to remove, how to export playlists, edit them and then reimport it?


silkz
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TL; DR: I messed up 8 playlists that has hundreds (maybe a couple thousand for 3 of them) of entries, by adding hundreds of entries instead of a few. How can I export the playlists, edit them and then re import them so they take the place of the messed up playlists?

 

I made a mistake and screwed up playlists, most of which are not mine but my remote users'. A few of these playlists have thousands of entries, mostly TV episodes, so re-creating them is not an option and they have been modified in Emby enough that their content is unique from the originally imported Plex playlists.Yesterday I added all episodes of shows, instead of just a couple episodes, to at least 8 playlists.

 

The web interface, the mobile interface and the Emby Theater interfaces are, I'm sorry, terrible for this. It will take me days and full carpal tunnel surgery to remove all the wrong entries using those interfaces. I'm new to Emby but I get it, these kinds of issues are low priority. I accept that but I need help working around this limitation. I think exporting the lists and then editing them, then re-imporitng them seems like the best way forward but maybe there is a better way?

 

If not, the playlist xml files in my Emby data folder have not been updated since they were first imported from Plex and the data in the XML and the data in Emby are not even close to the same anymore. So how do I export my existing playlists? Then how do I re-import them once I've finished editing them so they take the place of the messed up playlists?

 

Thanks, my parents are freaking out. Playlists are how they watch things through more than 2 decades of Meedio, MedaiPortal, MCE, SageTV, etc and I really screwed up their main TV one.

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Hi, why not just create new ones and then delete these playlists?

 

How do I create the playlists with the content that was there in the playlists before I screwed it all up? 2 of the playlists have thousands of entries. Manually re-entering them is actually worse than having to use Emby's interface to remove the few hundred I added by mistake.

 

My parents add and remove stuff constantly, I don't understand their system but they have been using it since my first media server and I just don't mess with it because it works for them. Since I made the first post they have added and removed 4 items even though I told them not to do anything till I can fix it. I need to get this fixed ASAP.

 

Thanks Luke!

 

Edit: Just in case my panic is making my needs unclear (my parents are in their 80s, live far away from me and are cranky AF without TV). I just need to remove a few hundred items from about 10 playlists. A simple checkmark/bulk edit function would fix this but the interface only lets me remove one item at a time which would take me days of straight 8 hour clicking. I just need a not-physically-damaging way to do this. Thanks!

Edited by silkz
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Happy2Play

Not ideal but you can edit the playlist.xml directly then do a Refresh Metadata/Scan for new and updated files on the playlist. (*\Emby-Server\programdata\data\playlists\THE Playlist in question\playlist.xml)
 
Of course backup the playlist before editing.
 
It is easy enough removing the <PlaylistItem><Path></Path></PlaylistItem>.
example

    <PlaylistItem>
      <Path>C:\Users\Media\Desktop\Videos\Movies - nfo\Test 2\9.11 (2017)\9.11 (2017) a.disc</Path>
    </PlaylistItem>

Looks like there is one side effect if you only removing the <PlaylistItem>, the Genres and Studios don't update.  But I Cleared all Genre and Studio nodes and they were refreshed with the Scan for new and updated files.

Edited by Happy2Play
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Thank you very much @@Happy2Play, but my problem is those xml playlist files in my Emby data directory are not updated since I imported them. The items in them are very different from what is currently in Emby. Are they supposed to update? Is there a way to force them to update? Should I reboot the server? Or is there some way to export the updated contents?

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Happy2Play

Thank you very much @@Happy2Play, but my problem is those xml playlist files in my Emby data directory are not updated since I imported them. The items in them are very different from what is currently in Emby. Are they supposed to update? Is there a way to force them to update? Should I reboot the server? Or is there some way to export the updated contents?

 

What do you mean by imported playlist?  What type of playlists are they?  Does the playlist in the Metadata Manager point to the playlist folder?

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What do you mean by imported playlist?  What type of playlists are they?  Does the playlist in the Metadata Manager point to the playlist folder?

 

So here is an example of a playlist: 5d0def828cbaf_Capture.png

 

Note the modified date and folder location, yet this playlist as been changed multiple times today (this is always my test playlist, I just screwed up yesterday and added entries to every playlist instead of this one and then added the whole show instead of a few episodes). I should also add that this playlist has maybe 30 entries but the one in Emby has hundreds. Its the only playlist named TV in Emby, in Emby's playlist data folder, in Trakt, in Plex, in Kodi or anywhere, other playlists have more specific names.

 

Many months ago I did a very complex process to import playlists from Plex to Emby. I used Trakt as well as using Kodi as an intermediary but that should have no impact on this. All I am trying to do is export the playlists in Emby so I can fix my mistake and then re-import them without having to change playlist name (as this confuses my parents and my grandma's caregiver). I've think I've got the importing covered but I cannot figure out how to export these playlists.

 

Thank you for helping me!

Edited by silkz
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You can just edit those xml files and then run a library scan after doing so. Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

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You can just edit those xml files and then run a library scan after doing so. Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

 

But the XML is not updated. See the last modified stamp on my screen grab. Its from April still. How do I get Emby to update the XML?

 

Or how do I export the playlist in Emby to an XML I can edit?

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  • Solution
Happy2Play

But the XML is not updated. See the last modified stamp on my screen grab. Its from April still. How do I get Emby to update the XML?

 

Or how do I export the playlist in Emby to an XML I can edit?

 

Does the modified date update if you go to Edit Metadata on that playlist and hit save?

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Does the modified date update if you go to Edit Metadata on that playlist and hit save?

 

YES!!!! Well no, but actually renaming the playlist did!!  :D  Well, it worked for my test playlist. I'm going to take a backup and then try it on the rest, but it looks like this is finally solved!!

 

Thank you so much @Happy2Play!

 

I saw the request for simple bulk file handling (check boxes and bulk item actions) is already in another thread, but if that is too time consuming, a simple export button would do wonders in basic playlist editing.

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There's an issue with this occasionally happening for some playlists in 4.1.1. It shouldn't happen anymore following the 4.2 release, but existing affected playlists may need to be recreated in this manner. Thanks.

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  • 7 months later...
  • 4 months later...
jdewoody71
On 2/18/2020 at 4:11 AM, ethanmarcos said:

You can easily import/export and manage your playlists using a great app called MusConv

It might be great but it seems a little overpriced for something I'd use once and maybe never use again. 

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