Move media feature?

[Loondawg 18]

Due to some required hardware changes, I am going to need to relocate a ton of media from the drives they are on to other drives. Does Emby have a "move" feature that will help facilitate this? If not, what are my best options? Are there some tables that can be modified to do drive/path substitution or something else? The idea of starting over is kind of overwhelming.

Unfortunately what would probably be the easiest and most obvious solution isn't an option. The differing drives sizes of the new hardware will not allow me to just move the data and reassign drive letters to the old letters. Some folders that were on different drives are going to have to wind up on the same drives.

Now I know I could just manually move the media to the new drives and rebuilt the libraries. But my library is in really good shape. I don't want to lost it. I have invested a ton of time into creating my own custom artwork, correcting misidentified media, adding customer metadata, etc... I would also like to keep watched histories and file added dates which won't happen if I just move and re-scan the media.

I'm really surprised I can't find a move feature. Am I missing something? I know I can't be the first person to run into this. What are my best options here?

[Luke 42081]

HI, we don't currently have anything like this, but we do plan to have a feature in future updates that will allow you to let the server know that you've moved a library so that database and metadata information can be preserved.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

When I have had to move media around I simply made the new location(s) and moved the media into it without shutting down Emby.
I then had Emby scan the involved libraries.
Then, after the scan completed, I removed the old locations from the library definition.

That is all I had to do and everything was moved and the libraries looked, from Emby's view, exactly as before I started.

I do have to say that I store metadata and bif files alongside my movies and I moved everything at the same time. i do not know the effect if all the support files are stored in Emby's default location.

Good luck.

[Loondawg 18]

2 hours ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

I do have to say that I store metadata and bif files alongside my movies and I moved everything at the same time. i do not know the effect if all the support files are stored in Emby's default location.

And that's where I am kind of screwed. This setup has been around for many years. And some of the later libraries are setup to use NFOs and save the artwork saved with the media but most aren't.

Maybe if I could find out how and where those files were stored, if not stored with the media, I could write some scripts and transfer the data safely .

[Loondawg 18]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

HI, we don't currently have anything like this, but we do plan to have a feature in future updates that will allow you to let the server know that you've moved a library so that database and metadata information can be preserved.

Thanks Luke. I know nothing is final until it's final, but is there possibly an ETA on that?

And in the mean time, is there any sort of work around or things that might help. For instance, if there was a way to export metadata and artwork in a somewhat understandable structure, at least it would not be lost. Or better yet, if there was some way to force emby to push the artwork and NFOs out to the library folders themselves. Anything like that at all would be such an incredible time saver.

[GrimReaper 4744]

You might wanna check community-made Custom Providers plugin, YMMV, never used it for full backup and restore (only Actors part) but you might test it on a subset of your collection, see what results you'll get (don't let the topic title confuse you, it just started like that but has evolved in features a lot afterwards).

Latest version here:

 

[AnSniper 19]

11 hours ago, Luke said:

HI, we don't currently have anything like this, but we do plan to have a feature in future updates that will allow you to let the server know that you've moved a library so that database and metadata information can be preserved.

Perhaps this can be achieved by defining the root directory, while ensuring that the overall directory structure of the file remains unchanged.

By defining a root directory, when the root directory is changed from A to B, only the root directory A set in the media library needs to be changed to B at the same time. However, does this require updating the database files?

 

 

A:\TV\drama

Root directory=A:\

 

A to B

 

B:\...\TV\drama

Root directory=B:\...\

 

In response to this situation, it should be more efficient to rescan all databases by replacing the root directory.

Edited November 1, 2023 by AnSniper

[blgentry 51]

"Good artists copy, great artists steal."

 

You should take a look at the JRiver Rename, Move, and Copy Files tool.  It's one of the most powerful features of JRiver MC.  It allows you to do Renames, Copies, and Moves of your media.  

 

In the screen shot above notice that I am in "update database" mode.  This just changes the internal database record for the location of the file.  Also note that I am using "Find and Replace" to change part of the path from my User directory to an external drive (/Volumes/NewBigDrive).

 

This works when you have already copied your media to a new place and you just want to tell the program to look for the media in that new location.  You can easily use this to change drive letters, leading paths, etc.

 

I have used this capability to move libraries between machines with different drive layouts.  I've done this many times and it always works quite well.  Of course this is made possible because JRiver MC can make a Database Backup as a ZIP file.  I just move the ZIP file to the new computer and do a database restore from that ZIP file.  This is a program function; I do not manually unzip or anything.  The program does the work.  Once I have the database restored to the new machine with different drives, the paths are wrong. So I use the tool pictured above to change the paths to the files.  That's all there is to it: My entire collection is migrated.  The database backup also contains all user settings  and they can be (optionally) restored along with the media data.

 

Emby should have similar features eventually.  To really manage the life cycle of a media collection, one has to consider that hardware will change.  Servers will be replaced.  Drives will be filled and new drives will be added or substituted.  Robust tools for doing operations like I have outlined here are essential for a mature media server that you will keep for a decade or more.

 

I hope the Emby team will consider STEALING some of these great ideas and using them.

 

Brian.

 

 

 

 

 

[Loondawg 18]

15 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

You might wanna check community-made Custom Providers plugin, YMMV....

Sorry, I went off on a tear and forgot to say thank you. Thank you. I'm looking into this now.

[Loondawg 18]

1 hour ago, blgentry said:

You should take a look at the JRiver Rename, Move, and Copy Files tool.....

Just my two cents... This looks really cool. But I would hate to see the awesome delay the more necessary. That is so much of a bigger scope than what I need.

I'm just looking for something that says anything that was in a library pointing to "X:\TV\" should now point to "Z:\Recorded\TV Shows\". Just a simple replace A for B would solve my immediate needs and I suspect would be something a lot of people could use. No fancy interface needed. A simple command line would do. You know, shut the server down, run this command, fire the server back up when it completes. If it could be done under the normal dashboard, all the better but I really don't even care about that. I just need to be able to get this routine file move done.

But once there was a tool like that in place, then I would be all on board for what you suggested.

[Loondawg 18]

Okay. I'm just realized I'm an idiot.

Everything in my entire library setup is based on networks shares. I can move my files anywhere I want as long as I keep the same share name. Emby should work as if nothing changed because as far as its concerned nothing did. It would be nice to have a move feature for renaming folders, drives, or machines, but what I thought was an immediate crisis was easily avoidable.

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Loondawg