Emby folder display issue

[halitayarci 13]

Serious question: Is it really that hard to bring the old folder view back? The developers say this is the real folder attitude. It may be; but it is not the style we arranged our media and already embedded metadata to them. We can't sort, organize or select titles anymore which makes creating collections or playlists a chore... And I am sorry but no, it is not just one click more, it is more than that and you know it...

[Steven 158]

15 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, what we can also do that will help with this is give mixed content libraries a Movies & Shows tab, rather than separating them.

I think what it needs is an “All” tab that it defaults to. I get the reasoning for making the folder view more accurate but it seems a bit broken to me.

 For example I have a  mixed folder for Anime, and in the folder view the series will still display IMDb rating and year, as it used to, but the movies don’t, so they won’t air by release date. Also the movies that have a theme mp3 show as a separate file for the movies

[mrmixed 77]

2 hours ago, halitayarci said:

Serious question: Is it really that hard to bring the old folder view back? The developers say this is the real folder attitude. It may be; but it is not the style we arranged our media and already embedded metadata to them. We can't sort, organize or select titles anymore which makes creating collections or playlists a chore... And I am sorry but no, it is not just one click more, it is more than that and you know it...

While I can't speak for the developers, it would be very easy to bring the old view back.  You can do it yourself, right now, if you restore a pre-upgrade database backup and disable the services that mangle the metadata.  (However, it probably isn't a sustainable approach because you'll never be able to re-scan your library, and I don't know what will happen if you add new content.)  See instructions:

The point is that the UI interface has not changed.  What has changed is a metadata organization script that runs in the background:

Literally the only thing that seems to have changed is some flags in the database that gets set at the content level.  That other thread even suggested there might be some sort of workaround to manually run a script against the database, but I haven't started trying to reverse-engineer things to figure it out, and none of the other more knowledgeable people have offered any further guidance.  However, I wouldn't trust any temporary solution going forward because without official support some future version will probably just destroy Folder View entirely.  But I'd very much welcome any sort of temporary solution if we also got the devs to agree to restore the old view in the (hopefully near) future.

[jasmine96 7]

Hi Luke,

Same here — I’ve run into the same issue after updating to 4.9.1.80.

Before, in folder view, if a folder contained just one movie, clicking that folder would take me straight to the movie’s detail page. That was perfect, and I’ve used Emby this way for years.

Now, even if there’s only one movie inside, Emby adds another subfolder (like A → B → movie), so I have to click through one more level. It makes browsing my library much less convenient.

I’ve seen the suggested workaround, but honestly it feels a bit clunky and not what we really want. We just want the original simple folder behavior back — or at least a global option that lets users choose between the new and old style.

It would be great if this setting could apply to Movies, TV Shows, Mixed Content libraries, and any other content type that uses folder view — so that the experience is consistent across all libraries.

Please consider restoring or adding this option in a future update. The old folder view worked beautifully for many of us longtime users.

Thanks a lot for listening and for all your hard work on Emby!

Edited October 13, 2025 by jasmine96

[Happy2Play 9780]

59 minutes ago, jasmine96 said:

Please consider restoring or adding this option in a future update. The old folder view worked beautifully for many of us longtime users.

Even if something was restored it would be destructive again as all views would have to be rebuilt (affected everyone differently).  I can see the day where a forced rebuild may have to happen to get everyone back on the same page.  As new installs have different default setting then upgraded installs across the board.

 

[Steven 158]

Is there a technical reason why we can’t have a default view of movies and shows combined as the default? That seems like the most obvious solution.

[mrmixed 77]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

Even if something was restored it would be destructive again as all views would have to be rebuilt (affected everyone differently).  I can see the day where a forced rebuild may have to happen to get everyone back on the same page.  As new installs have different default setting then upgraded installs across the board.

 

Well, you can easily limit the destruction by setting a default value on the new toggle option (to set it to "the 4.9 way").  Then the only people who would have re-destruction would be those of us who want to restore Folder View.  I'd take that trade if it makes it easier for you to find a path forward.

Although it could potentially be more beneficial to default it to "the 4.8 way" so that anyone who hasn't already upgraded wouldn't have any destruction at all.  To this end it would be most beneficial to get a patch out soon, because you would avoid any type of destruction at all for users who have yet to upgrade.

I get that there is testing that needs to happen before you put out a patch (and it's pretty obvious none of the devs have a test library set up to test this issue, so you have that as an obstacle as well).  But we're literally just talking about flags in the database at this point, right?  It doesn't have to be a complicated fix?  You also probably have at least a half dozen people who have never installed a beta before who would be willing to take a chance on this next one..  (Honestly, my alternative at this point is trying to hack some downgrade binaries into my server).

Regardless, short-term patch or not, it would at least be reassuring to have an admin say that they will agree to fix this issue.

[Luke 42077]

6 hours ago, Steven said:

Is there a technical reason why we can’t have a default view of movies and shows combined as the default? That seems like the most obvious solution.

Right this makes the most sense.

[Happy2Play 9780]

51 minutes ago, Luke said:

7 hours ago, Steven said:

Is there a technical reason why we can’t have a default view of movies and shows combined as the default? That seems like the most obvious solution.

Right this makes the most sense.

True but at the same time does not change anything for the Folder layer change on single items to be displayed like previous collapsed like Movie/Shows tabs.

[Steven 158]

1 minute ago, Happy2Play said:

True but at the same time does not change anything for the Folder layer change on single items to be displayed like previous collapsed like Movie/Shows tabs.

Isn’t it just the same apart from not having a folder icon? The content is still mixed together.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Just now, Steven said:

Isn’t it just the same apart from not having a folder icon? The content is still mixed together.

Visually yes, functionally no.  As mentioned, you cannot identify/change things on a Folder as it is not the actual content.

[mrmixed 77]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Right this makes the most sense.

 

15 minutes ago, Steven said:

Isn’t it just the same apart from not having a folder icon? The content is still mixed together.

Agreed that it would be a good improvement, but it is not a solution for the Folder View issue (and my thanks to @Happy2Playfor pointing that out).

 

I still think I'm missing something in terms of how you intend Movies to be organized, but having a neat multi-level hierarchy is so incredibly easy using Folders.  I'm interested to learn a different approach to organizing Movie content, but I still think any "preferred" non-Folder solution is going to be very time-consuming to setup:

 

[Steven 158]

15 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Visually yes, functionally no.  As mentioned, you cannot identify/change things on a Folder as it is not the actual content.

Ahh ok. Not exactly sure what you mean, but must’ve not have been the way I had used it. I always found the folder view as a bit of a second class citizen for mixed content, but was how I wanted it for the movies or shows folders.

[Raelone 19]

I'm in the same boat.  I have 2 movie libraries - Movies and Classic movies.  Until this update they both had a very nice visually pleasing Folder view.  They both are laid out the same (I use radarr to maintain my movies).  Top level Library folder - Category Folders - Movies folders.  For the one that did not lose its folder view I see this -



with the category looking like
 

My classic movies in folder view looked exactly the same until the update.  Now it looks like



And 



with another click needed to got into the secondary folder that holds a single movie (yes I saw the note on how to eliminate that sometimes).  It is ugly, inefficient, and just doesn't do what we have had for years on years.  I have enough movies that I want folder view as my default so if I feel like watching a Cary Grant movie I can quickly get to all the Cary Grant movies because they are all in my Cary Grant category folder.  Again, this layout has worked for as long as I have had Emby, at least 6+ years now.  

So my question is how do I get the Classic Movies library that changed without me changing a thing on the library setup itself back to the same style as my movies library still is?

[mrmixed 77]

4 hours ago, Raelone said:

I'm in the same boat.  I have 2 movie libraries - Movies and Classic movies.  Until this update they both had a very nice visually pleasing Folder view.  They both are laid out the same (I use radarr to maintain my movies).  Top level Library folder - Category Folders - Movies folders.  For the one that did not lose its folder view I see this -



with the category looking like
 

My classic movies in folder view looked exactly the same until the update.  Now it looks like



And 



with another click needed to got into the secondary folder that holds a single movie (yes I saw the note on how to eliminate that sometimes).  It is ugly, inefficient, and just doesn't do what we have had for years on years.  I have enough movies that I want folder view as my default so if I feel like watching a Cary Grant movie I can quickly get to all the Cary Grant movies because they are all in my Cary Grant category folder.  Again, this layout has worked for as long as I have had Emby, at least 6+ years now.  

So my question is how do I get the Classic Movies library that changed without me changing a thing on the library setup itself back to the same style as my movies library still is?

I can't speak as to why your top-level folder display is messed up (there is a new library setting, "Merge the contents of the top level folders when using folder view", but I'm not sure if that applies in your case).  Regardless, this may help as a short-term workaround for the single-title-folders if you still have a database backup from the 4.8 environment:

 

 

[Teddy 100]

I think for now, for those of us who value this type of  folders organization we've used for years, it's best to restore a full backup (whoever has it) from a few days ago with the previous version of Emby Server and all its metadata, and disable the automatic update option.

I've tried to get used to it but I miss the previous folder organization.

The question is whether it's worth it to no longer have support for the previous version.

 

[Zelig 48]

Another one here with the same issue.

Seems that all of us that have been using this since the MediaBrowser days  have, more or less, the same library structure

This is a huge setback at least for me. 

I found out that having tall the movies files in the same directory resolves this issue.

Exaple:

If you have this:

C:\Movies\Drama\Movie One\Movie One.mkv

C:\Movies\Drama\Movie Two\Movie Two.mkv

Ypu get the new folder view

If you change it to:

C:\Movies\Drama\Movie One\Movie One.mkv

                                                      \Movie Two.mkv

You get the old folder view (This work if the library is set for Movies or Mixed content)

However, I have more than 8.000 movies in a very elaborate folder structure of decades, genres and subgenres so changing to this structure would be a MAYOR pain in the as***

Before doing that, wich wold take A LOT of time, let's see what the developers come up with.

 

I rather go back to the previous version of the  server than doing this if we won't get back the old view.

 

 

 

 

 

[Raelone 19]

Unfortunately, that directory layout is incompatible with Radarr. So to convert to it requires basically having one directory for Radarr to find and retrieve things to and then manually making symbolic links to the directory structure for Emby work from (so as to not double the disk space required).  The root of the problem for me still is that one of my movies directories, which is in the Radarr layout, works fine like it used to, while another with the same library setup and directory layout does not.  Unfortunately, I do not have a 4.8 backup to go back to.

[Teddy 100]

On 10/19/2025 at 3:19 AM, Teddy said:

I think for now, for those of us who value this type of  folders organization we've used for years, it's best to restore a full backup (whoever has it) from a few days ago with the previous version of Emby Server and all its metadata, and disable the automatic update option.

I've tried to get used to it but I miss the previous folder organization.

The question is whether it's worth it to no longer have support for the previous version.

 

Update: I finally went back to the previous version 4.8.11.0, which is worth it because, aside from the folder issue, I also notice that the folder view isn't organized properly by year or release.

[Raelone 19]

Yea I noticed sorting by year is totally broken a few nights ago.  Sorting by year ends up still by filenme/title

[cbingor 11]

This was a fatal mistake that destroyed the directory structure I'd spent four years organizing, leaving me feeling utterly defeated for over a week.

[cbingor 11]

On 10/4/2025 at 10:24 AM, Luke said:
2025 年 10 月 4 日上午 10:24，卢克说道：

Hi, this makes the folder view more accurate, but you can avoid the extra click by going into your user display settings.
您好，这使得文件夹视图更加准确，但是您可以通过进入用户显示设置来避免额外的点击。

So click the user icon in the top right -> app settings -> display, then check this option:
所以点击右上角的用户图标->应用设置->显示，然后勾选这个选项：

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.
如果这有帮助，请告诉我们。谢谢。

This is a stupid setting. By default, this option isn't even enabled. And even when you turn it on, it still only shows folder names—no other movie details like bitrate, year, file size, etc. Why would I want to see those stupid folder names? It ruins the entire software's aesthetics. This change is a completely fatal, erroneous, and idiotic decision.

[Luke 42077]

19 minutes ago, cbingor said:

This is a stupid setting. By default, this option isn't even enabled. And even when you turn it on, it still only shows folder names—no other movie details like bitrate, year, file size, etc. Why would I want to see those stupid folder names? It ruins the entire software's aesthetics. This change is a completely fatal, erroneous, and idiotic decision.

I think ultimately it will be on by default. We just wanted to give it time to ensure it didn’t bring about any new issues, which it hasn’t.

[Steven 158]

5 hours ago, cbingor said:

This is a stupid setting. By default, this option isn't even enabled. And even when you turn it on, it still only shows folder names—no other movie details like bitrate, year, file size, etc. Why would I want to see those stupid folder names? It ruins the entire software's aesthetics. This change is a completely fatal, erroneous, and idiotic decision.

This must be a bug as it still works for folders that are TV shows. It would be good to have this fixed.

[Teddy 100]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

I think ultimately it will be on by default. We just wanted to give it time to ensure it didn’t bring about any new issues, which it hasn’t.

Sorry Luke, just to clarify, at some point are you planning on the possibility that version 4.9 will behave like 4.8 in regards to the problem some of us have with the folders issue, or those of us who need folders to work as usual, or will we have to stay on version 4.8?