huge anime library reccomended setup

[Luke 42077]

Thanks for the feedback !

[lostman_ 1]

Sorry for awake an old topic, first, thank to everyone in this topic, those info are extremely useful. (We need an official guide for this stuff)

I'm in a similar situation, bought Emby Premiere just two months ago, and i've a huge library of anime, more than 8TB and more than 1000 from series and films. My first intent was to use Shoko server to rename my folders and download metadata and art, so that then Emby could do less work to take everything it, but Shoko server doesn't work like i was thinking and there is no support plugin for a Shoko server agent for Emby. 

 

So, i want to ask a few question to understand if i'm doing it right:

- I would rename manually all my folder, is it better to use the English naming and add the (year) to the folder? 

- Then, for sub-folder, most of my anime folder already use the "SeasonXX" design, so i just need to check all of them and update the older ones. 

- For Extra, Special and OVA, is just enough using a specif folder for each one?

- Big question, why do you guys separate movie to series? I can understand for external stuff, like Studio Ghibli collection, but for example, if i've a Movie that is part of the progress of an anime, i prefer having it into the same Anime folder, maybe on a "Movie" folder. To me the right watching order is not an issue, because anyway i would have a MyAnimeList page open, before watching anything. 

- So, better no using the Anime and MyAnimeList plugin, but just make a new library as Series and use only TVDB as agent? (Maybe FanArt) 

- Another big question, at the moment, my Movie and Tv Series metadata and art are all on my SSD cache on my unRaid setup, this because after using Jellyfin for years, i understand that if i want to see all my thumbail fast without issue and without spinning disks, it's better having them on a cache, make sense. But, if i want to still have all on the cache for that purpose, and at the same time have a copy on each anime folder, on the HDDs, for any other possible needs, like metadata backup, what do i need to do on Emby?

Those are the options i'm using now, to have everything on the cache, if i flag the two top options, do it saves them both on the media folders and cache? And would primary use the one on the cache?

 

Sorry for asking stupid questions, but i want to be 100% sure, lately i'm going crazy from all the stuff i'm setting up, stupid HA Proxy that don't want to work. 

 

Thanks again. 

[pwhodges 2012]

For naming, just check the default name and season structure for the series on TVDB (if you set that as first choice, which I would recommend), and use that.  Adding the date would avoid conflicts, especially with remakes (Rurouni Kenshin, Fruits Basket, etc, etc.  The default name on TVBD will normally include the date in those instances.

Specials, Season 0, and Extras, etc - those names and others are recognised by Emby and merged into one folder.  If you want a separate folder to appear, for films/movies for example, you must use a name which is not recognised by Emby, and hope that the behaviour doesn't change in a future update.  But for me, with a pretty large anime library, it works well enough.  If the metadata for a special, including movies, has a season/episode insertion point defined, Emby will display it in that position as well as in whatever special folder it is in. 

A limitation at present is that not all sorting orders from TVDB or TMDB can be selected - most specifically I would like to use the Monogatari series book order - but I can't.

My experience, and that of at least some others, is that using the specialised anime metadata sources made available by the "Anime" plugin, is often troublesome.  For me, TVDB handles everything just fine, including some pretty rare items; in a handful of cases I've simply added missing information to TVDB myself - it's quite easy to do.

Paul

Edited December 20, 2025 by pwhodges

[Luke 42077]

Quote

Those are the options i'm using now, to have everything on the cache, if i flag the two top options, do it saves them both on the media folders and cache? And would primary use the one on the cache?

Hi, if you want images downloaded to both your media folders and the servers internal cache, then you want to check the first two options in your screenshot, the third one doesn’t matter.

[lostman_ 1]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Hi, if you want images downloaded to both your media folders and the servers internal cache, then you want to check the first two options in your screenshot, the third one doesn’t matter.

Nice, thanks!

[lostman_ 1]

2 hours ago, pwhodges said:

For naming, just check the default name and season structure for the series on TVDB (if you set that as first choice, which I would recommend), and use that.  Adding the date would avoid conflicts, especially with remakes (Rurouni Kenshin, Fruits Basket, etc, etc.  The default name on TVBD will normally include the date in those instances.

Specials, Season 0, and Extras, etc - those names and others are recognised by Emby and merged into one folder.  If you want a separate folder to appear, for films/movies for example, you must use a name which is not recognised by Emby, and hope that the behaviour doesn't change in a future update.  But for me, with a pretty large anime library, it works well enough.  If the metadata for a special, including movies, has a season/episode insertion point defined, Emby will display it in that position as well as in whatever special folder it is in. 

A limitation at present is that not all sorting orders from TVDB or TMDB can be selected - most specifically I would like to use the Monogatari series book order - but I can't.

My experience, and that of at least some others, is that using the specialised anime metadata sources made available by the "Anime" plugin, is often troublesome.  For me, TVDB handles everything just fine, including some pretty rare items; in a handful of cases I've simply added missing information to TVDB myself - it's quite easy to do.

Paul

Thanks a lot for your respond! This clarify me a lot of stuff. 

I'm actually manually changing all folders by adding the year, i'm not changing all the names in English, because i noticed that TVDB is very good at picking even strange title, i've try finding some scripts or app to do it not manually, but i can't find anything relative to naming folders, so, more than 600 folders to change, yeah! 

So for the rest, i would probably need to do some experiment with just some specific anime and see how Emby handle it. Because there are anime for what i've more variant of the same season, or more variant of the same movie, like director cut, TV version etc. At the same time, there are OVA, ONA, Specials, Movie, etc. 

Thanks again!

[Luke 42077]

Hi please let us know how things go. Thanks.

[lostman_ 1]

Little update.

 

Before adding my all library to Emby, i decided to do some experiment, to see both how Emby and TVDB manage the different folding structure and naming scheme there are on my library. To be precise, main folder contain both anime and animated film with a folder each one, with name and year, that's basic naming scheme for everything, almost. 

Anime/
    Planetes (2003)
    Plastic Memories (2015)
    Pluto (2023)
    Pokemon (1997)
    Porco Rosso (1992)

So level 1 folders are oke, the issue start with level 2 and 3 and can be easy like this one (most anime have a "SeasonXX" folder, even the one with just one season, apart for movie stuff. Taking into consideration that sometimes i have other stuff in those folders, like DVD covers, PDF or JPG media for collection, specific music, etc) :

Anime/
     Bakuman (2010)/
                 Season01
                 Season02
                 Season03

Or more complicated like this one:

Anime/
    Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! (2016)
                                Movie/
                                    Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Kurenai Densetsu (2019)
                                OVA/
                                    (2 files without folder)
                                Season01
                                Season02
                                Season03

There are even worse ones. So, i took some of those more complicated and some easy one and put on a temporally folder on my cache, and try making a library with just a few GB of stuff.

 

I select those for my testing, but i would maybe try other, depending on the result. I already know that when i would scan the all library, i would surely need to look at each anime and see if everything is ok, anyway. 

First one is Orange Road with this folder structure:

Orange Road (1987)/
            Extra/
                (mix of video, opening, art work, music, etc, divided in other folders)
            Movie/
                (3 movie without folder, i want to see if is better having a folder for each one or none)
            OVA/
                (8 OVA)
            Season01/
                  (regular 48 episodes)
            Special/
                (one special like OAD)

Then Initial D, just because there is a extra folder with all the extra stage, just some specials. 

Initial D (1998)/
            Extra/
                Initial D Battle Stage
                Initial D Extra Stage
                Initial D Final Stage
                Initial D Legend BD-Rip
                (a .rar with OST)
            Season01
            Season02
            Season03 (it's a film, a want to see of it display it)
            Season04
            Season05

Then i'm trying one that on each Season folder have some OAV or special, not sorted, or even folder for extra stuff. 

Grisaia no Kajitsu (2014)/
                Season01/
                    Extra (a ton of stuff, from art, soundtrack and mini videos)
                    (normal episodes)
                    (6 Specials)
                Season02/
                    Extra (like the one on the folder above)
                    (a Movie and a special)
                Season03/
                    (same ad the first folder, mix of Extra folder, episodes and special)

Last, i want to see how multiple version of the same stuff are handled, nothing particular, in this situation i just have 2 folder for season 1 and two for season 3, where one is a normal version and the other one have Italian subtitles but is an older release.

Aria the Animation (2005)/
                Season01 - Aria the Animation
                Season01 - Aria the Animation - ITA
                Season02 - Aria the Natural
                Season03 - Aria the Origination
                Season03 - Aria the Origination - ITA
                Season04 - Aria the Avvenire

To make the library on Emby, i'm trying with "mix content" considering there are movie and series. Below images on how i setup the library, i'm Italian so i would love to have text and description in Italian, even so i much prefer Anime title in original Japanese or eventually English, so i need to see how things behave and eventually i would use English, as for images and rating, the original ones is fine. 

 

So we got the result. 

- Starting from Aria, season 1 and 3 have two different variant, how Emby show me those? Opening the anime i just see the 4 seasons (the 4th doesn't have the right name, it's just named season 4), but if i select season 1 or 3, and i select a episode, without using the play button, it show me the Version tab! But if for example i select a different version, the episode finished, next one hit, the next one doesn't follow the same version and use the first one available. So, not a good solution. Plus, on the season 3 folder there are some special and it show me those as different version of the tab, when those are totally different stuff. Before moving them on a different folder, i want to see if changing language of the metadata, would help. 

- On Grisaia i just see the 3 season (season 3 have a generic name, could be a language issue); on season 1 there is no music or art, but other than the season itself, there are all the specials and the ending of the specials, those are on a specific folder inside the extra folder. No bueno, i need to move or remove them. On season 2 same, i see the movie, the special on the same folder and the credit on the extra folder. On season 3 is the same of the season 1 folder, a mix. No bueno. Before doing change, i would try with a different language on metadata, here too, and then maybe try arranging folders in a different way.

- As for Initial D, seems like Emby doesn't like series with more than 3 season, lol, season 1 and 2 are so perfect that the metadata pick even each episode name in my language, from season 3 up they all have the file naming, and doesn't make sense, because all seasons have the same nomenclature. Still, need to see the difference with different language metadata. As for the Extra folder, i see a Extra season, but inside is everything together, no division from the folders, so i probably need to make a folder for each special, beside the season folder, i would try. 

- As for Orange Road, it fuck up badly, Emby just make one big Season 1 with everything in it, everything from the many folders you can see above. Before doing any change to the folder design, i would try changing language of metadata, as mentioned above. 

 

So, for now, i know that Emby see the Extra folder just when it like to do, it could be a naming scheme issue. We know that stuff inside the folders need to be very good separated, otherwise it is a mess. Now i would try adding another anime, one well sorted that still have other folder, like OAV or Special, over the SeasonXX folder. 

So i added:

Kampfer (2009)/
            Extra
            Season01
            Special (each folder have just some .mkv)

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! (2016)/
                        Movie (the movie it's inside its own folder)
                        OVA (they don't have folder, just 2 .mkv)
                        Season01(season 1 and 2 have OAV inside)
                        Season02
                        Season03 

-  For Kampfer no bueno, it's everything inside "Season 1", so it mixed all the folders above, very bad one. 

- For Konosuba, i'm amazed, It created each section like the folder structure, so we have Movie, OVA, and the 3 seasons write in Italian. Season 1 and 2 have each episode named in Italian! On season 2, for no reason, it pick just 3 episodes, to notice that on season 1 and 2 there are 2 OAV each folder, named like continued episodes, and it see them but doesn't like the nomenclature, so i need to move them on the OAV folder. 

 

So considering the last two example, it could really be a issue of the language i pick for the agent, considering Konosuba is a more famous anime compared to Kampfer. So, now i try again, all in English, and i would remove the old library and make a new one. Same setting as before, just English as main metadata language. While adding a new Anime:

Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou (2015)/
                        Extra (a special and opening, ending)
                        OAV (two OAV, no folders)
                        Season01 (just season files)

 

Result of the new library, TL;DR no difference from before. Even on the naming of the Initial D episodes, from season 2 up Emby really hate giving episodes name. At first glance, could be a cache issue, it isn't changing anything as naming and structure because everything is already cache, even if on a different language metadata, but that's not the case, why? I give a look at Monster Musume, it creare one season and put everything in it, this doesn't make any sense, considering that in other occasion it liked at least the OAV folder. 

Now i would try by changing language to Japanese, just to test, result? 0 change, other that i can't read Kanji and so i don't understand a thing. So it's not really a metadata issue. At least. 

 

Next test, is by changing the folder structure, I would say, that i try to change them by logic, but considering i'm using TVDB, i should use TVDB naming and structure on everything; for example, to me "Aria the Avvenire" is the last season of the "Aria" series, and in fact is the last to watch, but to be right, it's not a season, but a Special series and both TVDB and MAL show it as Special, so if i put it on a Special folder, magically everything make sense. 

So, i've done some change, and some testing, and what i've learn is that if you create a folder like OAV or Special and put more than one folder, to differentiate many OAV or special, Emby merge all them in one big OVA folder or Special folder, and it's not good. So the best thing to do, is simply not use those specific folders, but just create a folder for each OAV or each special, it become ugly fast if you have a lot of stuff, but it's the only solution for what i understand, i don't like it, so i would try something else, but if you have single OAV, is fine. At the same time, for some anime, like Orange Road and Monster Musume, Emby just put everything on a single folder. It doesn't make sense, the fact that on some Anime it can see single folder for each OAV and make separate sections for each one, but on those it keep making a single selection/folder. 
Aria, Grisaia, Initial D, Kampfer (it work in a strange way, and the season episodes are all in Japanese language, no sense) and Konosuba worked fine with my change (still season 2 show only 3 episodes with strange naming), where Monster Musume and Orange Road doesn't work and Emby merge everything together.

 

So, i'm like at the starting point again. (for some stuff, the issue could be related to the cache, but i don't want to clear it, because i've everything saved about other libraries, i probably need to save other library metadata as nfo in each media folder, so i don't loose personalized metadata change?!)

 

Sorry for the long post and all grammar error, my end date for this project is for the 30/12, i want all working by the 1th of January. Worse case, i would try to up the all the library and then make manual change to all metadata and folder scheme of each anime. As for the future, as i would implement Radar and Sonar, things could be automated, even the naming scheme of all single episodes, just to match TVDB. 

 

Just to understand, below the folder structure i use for all anime on the last test.

Aria the Animation (2005)/
                Aria the Avvenire - Special
                Aria the Origination - Picture Drama Special
                Aria the OVA - Arietta
                Season01 - Aria the Animation
                Season02 - Aria the Natural
                Season03 - Aria the Origination

Grisaia no Kajitsu (2014)/
                Grisaia no Kajitsu Special
                Grisaia no Meikyuu
                Grisaia no Meikyuu Special
                Grisaia no Rakuen Specials
                Season01 - Grisaia no Kajitsu
                Season02 - Grisaia no Rakuen

Initial D (1998)/
            Initial D Battle Stage
            Initial D Extra Stage
            Initial D Final Stage
            Initial D Legend
            Season01 - Initial D 1st Stage
            Season02 - Initial D 2nd Stage
            Season03 - Initial D 3rd Stage
            Season04 - Initial D 4th Stage
            Season05 - Initial D 5th Stage

Kampfer (2009)/
            Season01
            Specials

Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! (2016)/
                            Movie
                            OVA
                            Season01
                            Season02
                            Season03

Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou (2015)/
                        OAV
                        ONA
                        Season01

Orange Road (1987)/
            Movie
            OVA
            Season01
            Special

 

Some pics of some resoults:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[xena990 8]

Here is my setup for Monogatari and Aria. I just use Sonarr to import them with TVDB metadata

Because i use TVDB metadata, it will automatically put the specials episode in the order that is needed for watching. If it does not have that metadata on tvdb, just use myanimelist and put the episodes to air after specific episode.

Edited December 27, 2025 by xena990

[Luke 42077]

@lostman_ please let us know if this helps. Thanks !

[pwhodges 2012]

"Season01" is not documented as supported - I always use "Season1"; but for all I know that might not be an issue.

Putting Movies or OVAs into subfolders of an series is normal, and they should be numbered as specials (e.g. s00e01) and placed in Specials folder (or another name) - if they logically fall within the series, then the metadata should contain the position at which they will be inserted in the seasons (if TVDB doesn't do that for you, add the data manually).  Do not mark the library as mixed content unless you have separate movies in their own folders at the same level as series, and have understood the stricter requirements for naming in such libraries.  As I explained before, Emby will often merge different types of specials folders...

I have some of the same series as you, and they just work™.  Ensure that your files are consistently numbered following the chosen scheme from the first metadata provider in your list.

Multiple versions of the same season won't work - either put them together so that you have alternate versions for each episode, or make two folders for the whole series with the alternate versions in one of them (and ensure that Emby is not set to combine multiple folders).

My advice would be to follow the Emby TV naming guidelines precisely, and only experiment with varying them once that's working for you.

Paul

[lostman_ 1]

On 12/27/2025 at 8:08 AM, xena990 said:

Here is my setup for Monogatari and Aria. I just use Sonarr to import them with TVDB metadata

Because i use TVDB metadata, it will automatically put the specials episode in the order that is needed for watching. If it does not have that metadata on tvdb, just use myanimelist and put the episodes to air after specific episode.

 

I don't know if the issue is related to Emby or TVDB but even managing the folder structure as TVDB like, i still have issue as descrive into my comment, some Anime get pick up and work fine, some none, and this was a trial with few anime, if i try with my 600 folder library, i can't imagine how many "false positive" or "error" it could give me.

Even considering i really don't like the order TVDB use for anime, doing like you have done, external searching for metadata with other "solutions" is probably the best scenario, in fact i was initially looking to use Shoko Server, but after discovering it doesn't work like i was thinking, i just trying with Emby directly. 

I even try the same test anime above with TheMovieDB, and i much prefer the metadata and images it give me, and some stuff that was missing with TVDB, is available on MovieDb, still i have issue with the folder structure, but could be cache issue. Before deleting my emby cache i need to save all metadata and image for my other collections that work, the issue is that i don't really have time and this thing is consuming me.

I thing i would go back and trying to find metadata outside Emby, doing like you, with Sonarr could be good, other than i hate Sonarr and i've a mix of Movie and Series. I would look again at Shoko Server and eventually other solutions. I'm pretty sure that using AniDB or MAL would be perfect, even if people here seems having issue, still, the real issue with those two is that you can't do ton of call for metadata fetching, they are not made for that use and their server can't sustain that usage. 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. 

Edited December 29, 2025 by lostman_

[lostman_ 1]

On 12/27/2025 at 3:24 PM, pwhodges said:

"Season01" is not documented as supported - I always use "Season1"; but for all I know that might not be an issue.

Putting Movies or OVAs into subfolders of an series is normal, and they should be numbered as specials (e.g. s00e01) and placed in Specials folder (or another name) - if they logically fall within the series, then the metadata should contain the position at which they will be inserted in the seasons (if TVDB doesn't do that for you, add the data manually).  Do not mark the library as mixed content unless you have separate movies in their own folders at the same level as series, and have understood the stricter requirements for naming in such libraries.  As I explained before, Emby will often merge different types of specials folders...

I have some of the same series as you, and they just work™.  Ensure that your files are consistently numbered following the chosen scheme from the first metadata provider in your list.

Multiple versions of the same season won't work - either put them together so that you have alternate versions for each episode, or make two folders for the whole series with the alternate versions in one of them (and ensure that Emby is not set to combine multiple folders).

My advice would be to follow the Emby TV naming guidelines precisely, and only experiment with varying them once that's working for you.

Paul

I don't remember where i read, but they were saying that TVDB like this format "SeasonXX". And i don't have issue picking single/multi season, the issue is with other stuff (like "Specials" or "OAV"), and the issue is that Emby pick those folders on some anime and not on others. 

Ok for the "mixed content" i didn't know this, very helpful, thanks, as i have time, i'll try making a new library as "show", that could be the all issue. 

Thanks for the suggestion, i would look into Emby naming guideline instead of the one for TVDB. 

As i have result, i would post, i'm still considering to find a way to fetch metadata not via Emby but via external solutions. 

[RanmaCanada 494]

TVDB is dumb, and they constantly screw up anime and it makes it extremely frustrating and people think it's an Emby problem, when it's in fact those idiots at TVDB who have screwed things up. Anything that doesn't fit you need to custom name. Emby has gotten better at handling extras like openings endings and music vidoes and the like, but anything that is not listed can get totally screwed up and merged with other files. For openings and endings I usually name them as S00 with the episode being in the hundreds. So for example S01 OP01 would be S00E101, season 2 opening would be S00E201 and so on. Same with any "extras" from the respective seasons. @pwhodges has fought with this a lot and has it down to a science. We've both discussed in different topics in the past how to handle stubborn anime. We have to remember, Emby is only as smart as the metada providers, so anything that doesn't fit their mold we have to fix it so it does and won't pull any data, so we can add our own, yet will still make sense to viewers or ourselves.