Copy Collections to another Emby server?

[cgcmgr 28]

Hey everyone, 

I have two Emby servers.  Once is based on 12.3-RELEASE-p2 (imported the pool from TrueNas 12 Core to a fresh installation of TrueNas13 Core).  The other is based on 13.1-RELEASE-p9 (created in the freshly installed TrueNas 13 Core).  I have mimicked the 13.1 after the 12.3.  Everything is exactly the same, images, manual changes to the Metadata, etc..  I have about 170 Collections that I manually created in the 12.3 Emby server.  Is it possible to back the collections up and copy them to the 13.1 Emby server?  Is there a file that holds the Collections information?  If what is the name and where is it located?

I can manually create them if I have to, as I can just have the two servers side by side and just create the Collections as created on the 12.3 server.  , but that may take some time.  Looking for a quick way around this.

 

Thanks,
Chris

[Luke 42077]

Hi, have you enabled saving metadata to nfo files for your libraries? That's really the best way because then the collection information gets stored in there.

Beyond that, there is no way to move just one thing like that from one server to another.

[cgcmgr 28]

7 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, have you enabled saving metadata to nfo files for your libraries? That's really the best way because then the collection information gets stored in there.

Beyond that, there is no way to move just one thing like that from one server to another.

Hey Luke,

No, I did not.  I take it if I enable it now, it won't automatically create the NFOs for each Collection, will it? I'm thinking I should have had that setting enabled from the beginning.  Is that correct?

Chris

[Luke 42077]

Not the nfo for the collection, but rather the nfo for each item in the collection. It would have been best to have it enabled to begin with, but if you want to change that now then make sure to see the help text at the top of the options dialog.

[cgcmgr 28]

Thanks, I 'll check that out.

[Luke 42077]

Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[Roger Graham 6]

Hi, resurrecting an old-ish thread, as this seems to be the closest to my situation. 

My main question is - how can I copy across any custom collection data from one server to another; specifically, each custom collection's Primary image?  (Everything else on the new server looks great, presumably thanks to having .nfo files saved with the media.) 

Standard collections all seem to have been generated correctly.  But whilst the custom collections are present on the new server, none of their associated images are present.  Is this just something that needs to be done manually?

[Luke 42077]

On 12/25/2025 at 9:54 AM, Roger Graham said:

Hi, resurrecting an old-ish thread, as this seems to be the closest to my situation. 

My main question is - how can I copy across any custom collection data from one server to another; specifically, each custom collection's Primary image?  (Everything else on the new server looks great, presumably thanks to having .nfo files saved with the media.) 

Standard collections all seem to have been generated correctly.  But whilst the custom collections are present on the new server, none of their associated images are present.  Is this just something that needs to be done manually?

@Roger Grahamdid you do any backup and restore from the old to the new server?

Backup & Restore

[Roger Graham 6]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

@Roger Grahamdid you do any backup and restore from the old to the new server?

Backup & Restore

Hi Luke, thanks for replying.  I copied all the media from the existing QNAP NAS to a new QNAP NAS, and then restored a backup from the old Emby server (running on a PC) to the new Emby server (running on the new QNAP NAS). At least, I'm 99% sure that's what I did, hence coming to the forum to check why the restore didn't work as expected.  Apologies for not including that in my post.

I have been manually keeping the media of the two servers in sync since I created the new server.  In that case, is there any harm in doing a(nother) restore from the old server to the new?

And is it in any way relevant that the source Emby server is on a PC, whereas the new Emby server is running directly on the QNAP NAS that holds the media?

 

[Luke 42077]

On 2/5/2026 at 1:38 AM, Roger Graham said:

Hi Luke, thanks for replying.  I copied all the media from the existing QNAP NAS to a new QNAP NAS, and then restored a backup from the old Emby server (running on a PC) to the new Emby server (running on the new QNAP NAS). At least, I'm 99% sure that's what I did, hence coming to the forum to check why the restore didn't work as expected.  Apologies for not including that in my post.

In that case, is there any harm in doing a(nother) restore from the old server to the new?

 

 

Hi, I don't see why not. Did you end up trying it?