Subtitles in folder not recognized

[brothom 177]

@user84I managed to reproduce your issue:

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.mkv

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.de.srt (works)
C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.en.srt (works)

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\2_English -1.srt (works)
C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\2_English -2.srt (works)

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\The.Sopranos.S04E03.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\2_English.srt (does not work)
C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\The.Sopranos.S04E03.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\3_English.srt (does not work)The subtitles on your side seem to be nested two folders deep, in stead of the usual one-folder structure:

• subs/
  • 2_English.srt
  • 3_English.srt
• item.mkv

[user84 46]

2 minutes ago, brothom said:

@user84I managed to reproduce your issue:

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.mkv

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.de.srt (works)
C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG.en.srt (works)

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\2_English -1.srt (works)
C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\2_English -2.srt (works)

C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\The.Sopranos.S04E03.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\2_English.srt (does not work)
C:\Media\Series\The Sopranos\The.Sopranos.S04.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\Subs\The.Sopranos.S04E03.1080p.BluRay.x265-RARBG\3_English.srt (does not work)The subtitles on your side seem to be nested two folders deep, in stead of the usual one-folder structure:

• subs/
  • 2_English.srt
  • 3_English.srt
• item.mkv

Thanks for working to do that. So to my original question - Should these subtitles be being recognized? If they should but they aren't, why not? 

[brothom 177]

@user84

48 minutes ago, user84 said:

Thanks for working to do that. So to my original question - Should these subtitles be being recognized? If they should but they aren't, why not? 

I'm pretty sure they they're a folder "too deep". Standard structures are:

media.mkv
subtitle.de.srt

media.mkv
subs/subtitle.de.srt

Your structure is one folder deeper even.

Looking at the subtitle naming conventions https://emby.media/support/articles/Subtitles.html we see that Emby doesn't even "officially" support the nested folder but the Emby team tries to conform to all general standards so I won't be suprised that's why the sub-folder works and not the sub-sub-folder.

So they shouldn't work because they're a folder too deep and subtitles are generally put "aside" their media items.

[user84 46]

On 7/21/2025 at 10:46 AM, brothom said:

@user84

I'm pretty sure they they're a folder "too deep". Standard structures are:

media.mkv
subtitle.de.srt

media.mkv
subs/subtitle.de.srt

Your structure is one folder deeper even.

Looking at the subtitle naming conventions https://emby.media/support/articles/Subtitles.html we see that Emby doesn't even "officially" support the nested folder but the Emby team tries to conform to all general standards so I won't be suprised that's why the sub-folder works and not the sub-sub-folder.

So they shouldn't work because they're a folder too deep and subtitles are generally put "aside" their media items.

I have about 4k files I would need to relocate and rename. Do you have any suggested solutions other than renaming one by one?

[Neminem 1518]

Filebot 

[brothom 177]

1 hour ago, user84 said:

I have about 4k files I would need to relocate and rename. Do you have any suggested solutions other than renaming one by one?

What @Neminemsaid:

1 hour ago, Neminem said:

Filebot 

If you're on Windows you can take a look a "Total Commander" which is/was a rather popular tool.

I prefer using powershell and just renaming files like so:

// current directory
( Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse ) | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace 'Goosebumps S([\d]+)E([\d]+) (.*)', 'Top Gear (2002) - s$1e$2 - $3'}

// specified directory
Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Media\Shows\Top Gear\Season 02" -File -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace 'Top Gear S([\d]+)E([\d]+) (.*)', 'Top Gear (2002) - s$1e$2 - $3'}

Very useful for formatting an entire season from bulk.

I've manually (or via a command as above) edited all my files to be either formatted as:

Movies
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\Titantic (1997).mkv
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\Titantic (1997).de.srt
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\Titantic (1997).en.srt
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\Titantic (1997).en.sdh.srt
...

Movies (multi version)
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\HD\Titantic (1997) - 1080p.mkv
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\HD\Titantic (1997) - 1080p.en.srt
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\UHD\Titantic (1997) - 4K.mkv
X:\Media\Movies\Titantic (1997)\UHD\Titantic (1997) - 4K.en.srt

Shows
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 01\Top Gear (2002) - s01e01 - The Legacy Begins.mkv
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 01\Top Gear (2002) - s01e01 - The Legacy Begins.de.srt
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 01\Top Gear (2002) - s01e01 - The Legacy Begins.en.srt
...

X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 02\Top Gear (2002) - s02e01 - Nissan Sunny vs. Jet Engine.mkv
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 02\Top Gear (2002) - s02e01 - Nissan Sunny vs. Jet Engine.de.srt
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 02\Top Gear (2002) - s02e01 - Nissan Sunny vs. Jet Engine.en.srt
...

Shows (multi version)
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 01\UHD\Top Gear (2002) - s01e01 - The Legacy Begins - 4K.mkv
X:\Media\Shows\Top Gear (2002)\Season 01\HD\Top Gear (2002) - s01e01 - The Legacy Begins - 1080p.mkv

Books (adding the year doesn't work for ebooks yet )
X:\Media\Books\The Great Explosion (1963)\The Great Explosion.epub 

The above formatting also works with ANY OTHER media server. Plex, Jellyfin, they all support and even prefer this format.

I find having multiple version in different folders and separating them all exactly the same to manage the library very easy, albeit a little more work.

Edited July 23, 2025 by brothom