Here's a PowerShell script to backup your movie collections

[zBernie 15]

I wrote the PowerShell script below after I found that the Emby backup plugin does not backup movie collections. 
It copies the collection.xml file for each movie collection to a target directory, displays the movies in each collection,
and create an output file named Emby_Movie_Collections.txt with the same information.  You will need to change
the name "bernie" and the referenced paths, which should not require much effort. 

Hope you find it useful!

$EmbyCollectionsDir = "bernie@ds418:/var/packages/EmbyServer/target/var/data/collections"

$TargetDir = "C:\Users\bernie\OneDrive\Documents\Emby_Movie_Collections"

$SSHCmd = "C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\scp.exe"

 

$ErrorActionPreference = "Continue"

Start-Transcript -Path $TargetDir\Emby_Movie_Collections.txt -Append

 

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $TargetDir | Out-Null

 

& $SSHCmd -r $EmbyCollectionsDir $TargetDir

 

$XMLFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Users\bernie\temp -Recurse -Include collection.xml | Select-Object FullName

 

Write-Host "`nProcessing Emby movie collection files in: " $TargetDir "`n"

 

$XMLFiles | ForEach-Object { Process {

    [xml]$Movies = Get-Content -LiteralPath $_.FullName

  

    foreach($Movie in $Movies.Item) { 

       Write-Host "Collection:" $Movie.LocalTitle

    }

 

    foreach($Movie in $Movies.Item.CollectionItems.CollectionItem) { 

       Write-Host $Movie.Path

    }

 

    Write-Host `n

}}; 

 

Stop-Transcript

[Luke 37128]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing,

[PenkethBoy 2063]

as an alternative

Copy-Item -Path "path_to_collections_folder\*" -Destination "Path_to_backup_folder" -Recurse

\* is important

wrapped in any logging code you want

will copy all files from target to destination including sub folders

also will copy any other files in collections folder e.g. images

[zBernie 15]

7 hours ago, PenkethBoy said:

as an alternative

Copy-Item -Path "path_to_collections_folder\*" -Destination "Path_to_backup_folder" -Recurse

\* is important

wrapped in any logging code you want

will copy all files from target to destination including sub folders

also will copy any other files in collections folder e.g. images

This is copying from Linux to Windows, so you need to use scp or some similar tool to copy the files. 
I originally wrote this because my brother asked me what movies are in my Halloween collection.

[zBernie 15]

8 hours ago, Luke said:

Very cool. Thanks for sharing,

Can you tell me -- if I use the Emby backup plugin, then used the plugin to restore Emby in the event of disaster
recovery, would that be sufficient along with restoring the data directory shown below, to restore Emby to it's original state?
Is there anything else I should backup?

bernie@DS418:/var/packages/EmbyServer/target/var/data$ ls -1
activitylog.db
activitylog.db-shm
activitylog.db-wal
authentication.db
authentication.db-shm
authentication.db-wal
collections
connect.txt
devices
device.txt
displaypreferences.db
displaypreferences.db-shm
displaypreferences.db-wal
lastversion.txt
library.db
library.db-shm
library.db-wal
playlists
ScheduledTasks
users.db
users.db-shm
users.db-wal
wan.dat

[Luke 37128]

^ @cayars

[Carlo 4330]

1 hour ago, zBernie said:

Can you tell me -- if I use the Emby backup plugin, then used the plugin to restore Emby in the event of disaster
recovery, would that be sufficient along with restoring the data directory shown below, to restore Emby to it's original state?
Is there anything else I should backup?

bernie@DS418:/var/packages/EmbyServer/target/var/data$ ls -1
activitylog.db
activitylog.db-shm
activitylog.db-wal
authentication.db
authentication.db-shm
authentication.db-wal
collections
connect.txt
devices
device.txt
displaypreferences.db
displaypreferences.db-shm
displaypreferences.db-wal
lastversion.txt
library.db
library.db-shm
library.db-wal
playlists
ScheduledTasks
users.db
users.db-shm
users.db-wal
wan.dat

No, not from the standpoint of being able to restart Emby and have an instant running system.

This would backup all important information about the configuration of the system, the users, the libraries and things like this but you would likely need to reinstall Emby then restore the Emby Config backup and allow it to refresh/download images again (depending if they're stored with media or not).

If you want a complete setup that could be put back and ran then that would require a typical backup solution basically an image of the system.

Does that help?

[PenkethBoy 2063]

2 hours ago, zBernie said:

This is copying from Linux to Windows, so you need to use scp or some similar tool to copy the files. 
I originally wrote this because my brother asked me what movies are in my Halloween collection.

you can do ssh remoting via powershell no need to use other tools unless you want to

or symlink the collections folder to a share location and have it for the next time

done this for several of the emby "internal" folders which are not available via a share e.g. logs , programdata etc - makes it much easier to manage the nas/linux pc from my main win pc.

[zBernie 15]

1 hour ago, cayars said:

No, not from the standpoint of being able to restart Emby and have an instant running system.

This would backup all important information about the configuration of the system, the users, the libraries and things like this but you would likely need to reinstall Emby then restore the Emby Config backup and allow it to refresh/download images again (depending if they're stored with media or not).

If you want a complete setup that could be put back and ran then that would require a typical backup solution basically an image of the system.

Does that help?

So barring restoring an image of the system, if I reinstalled Emby, then do a restore using the Emby backup plugin, then restore the ../data directory, would that get me close to my previous configuration?

-Thanks

[PenkethBoy 2063]

yes to a degree - you would still need to rescan as metadata and cache folder would be empty.....

- but you are better off backing up the programdata directory as a whole - and restoring that (with emby off) then you should get emby back to how it was at the point of the backup

[Carlo 4330]

Doing a restore with the Emby Plugin would get your config back.  I was just saying it would have to possibly download images again if not stored with media, would need to download cast pics and things like that as well as rebuild the cache, etc...

Those all all replaceable items that can be pulled down from the internet so there isn't a need to back them up taking hours vs the quick backup/restore that can be done otherwise.

What PenkethBoy said above is good advice.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Depends if you want an instant restore and go

or 

can wait on a full library scan which could take hours depending how much media you have and settings in the library for chapters/bif's etc

[zBernie 15]

1 hour ago, PenkethBoy said:

yes to a degree - you would still need to rescan as metadata and cache folder would be empty.....

- but you are better off backing up the programdata directory as a whole - and restoring that (with emby off) then you should get emby back to how it was at the point of the backup

Thanks, sounds like a reasonable disaster recovery scenario.