Subtitles - Turn Off Forced Subs for entire Series

[jmassaro87 28]

I have a tv series, the entire thing plays with "English forced subs", I can turn them off each episode, but not for the series or even the seasons. Aside from turning all subs off in playback, is there a way to make them permanently off, unless turned on manually? There are no sub files in the folder structure, I have already looked hoping to just delete the subtitle files. 

[GrimReaper 4739]

Which server version? 

What Subtitle mode you have currently selected? 

[jmassaro87 28]

2 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Which server version? 

What Subtitle mode you have currently selected? 

4.8.11 on a Synology ds416play

I just changed it to smart to see if that would change it at all but, nope. It was on forced only, but being the subs are labeled as forced, I assumed that was not a great option.

[GrimReaper 4739]

4.9.1.80 stable has just been released a couple days ago, are you able to update? 4.8.11.0 did have some issues with forced subs and remembering selection per TV show, for comparison sake, could you select Always play subs mode, try to play a single episode with subs disabled and check how will it behave on subsequent episodes? You might wanna Clear saved track selections before testing. 

[jmassaro87 28]

Yeah I can definitely update, maybe later tonight when no one is watching in the house (kids and wife so chaos would ensue). I have changed the setting for always play and cleared the saved track selections to see if it works. If it does that at least buys me some time. Thanks for the quick responses!

[jmassaro87 28]

On 10/5/2025 at 4:05 PM, GrimReaper said:

4.9.1.80 stable has just been released a couple days ago, are you able to update? 4.8.11.0 did have some issues with forced subs and remembering selection per TV show, for comparison sake, could you select Always play subs mode, try to play a single episode with subs disabled and check how will it behave on subsequent episodes? You might wanna Clear saved track selections before testing. 

Ok, so did the update, and no change. Is there a certain set of settings for subs I need to enable? The only one I see says it relates to individual files. So if I turn off for a file, or episodes it remembers that, but it doesn’t flow to the rest of the season or series. 
 

If it doesn’t exist might be a nice feature request. 

[GrimReaper 4739]

5 hours ago, jmassaro87 said:

Is there a certain set of settings for subs I need to enable?

There ain't, it should occur automatically. 

5 hours ago, jmassaro87 said:

So if I turn off for a file, or episodes it remembers that, but it doesn’t flow to the rest of the season or series. 

Not using forced subs (and it works just fine with the other modes), but I'd guess issue - as reported below - was carried over to 4.9 stable, Dev would have to revert on that one. @Luke

 

5 hours ago, jmassaro87 said:

If it doesn’t exist might be a nice feature request. 

Existing FR is already implemented, guess that's something that needs to be sorted out. 

 

 

[jmassaro87 28]

20 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

There ain't, it should occur automatically. 

Not using forced subs (and it works just fine with the other modes), but I'd guess issue - as reported below - was carried over to 4.9 stable, Dev would have to revert on that one. @Luke

 

Existing FR is already implemented, guess that's something that needs to be sorted out. 

 

 

Thanks, but it says remembers on a “per video basis” not a per series or per season basis, so I’d assume it wouldn’t work for all the episodes just the ones I turn it off. 
 

but I can confirm that they are turned off for one I have turned them off for. Having to do that as we watch through all 150 episodes is annoying

[Luke 42077]

The same option applies to series, it just doesn't say that in the UI. So it does remember per series.

[jmassaro87 28]

23 hours ago, Luke said:

The same option applies to series, it just doesn't say that in the UI. So it does remember per series.

Gotcha. So theoretically if I turn subs off on s1e1, it should know to turn them off from then on for the whole series? If that is the case then it is not working in the most current stable version

 

[Luke 42077]

15 minutes ago, jmassaro87 said:

Gotcha. So theoretically if I turn subs off on s1e1, it should know to turn them off from then on for the whole series? If that is the case then it is not working in the most current stable version

 

No, Off is the one exception, at least for series, that doesn't carry to the next episode.

[nospotify 184]

On 10/9/2025 at 9:22 PM, Luke said:

No, Off is the one exception, at least for series, that doesn't carry to the next episode.

Could you please fix this so it isn't an exception? It remains very frustrating to turn subs off on first episode and have to do so again for every subsequent episode.

[Luke 42077]

13 minutes ago, nospotify said:

Could you please fix this so it isn't an exception? It remains very frustrating to turn subs off on first episode and have to do so again for every subsequent episode.

It’s not that simple. It would require more options to configure.

[visproduction 315]

Saving this to a script or batch (.bat) file may work for all .mkv media in the 'In' directory to make remuxed copies with changing the first 6 subtitles default settings in the 'Out' directory.  You would need a ffmpeg app install to run this. 

Change ~na.mkv to just ~a.mkv , if you want the filenames to remain the same in the 'Out' folder.

@ECHO OFF&Setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
Set INPUT=D:\In
Set OUTPUT=D:\Out
for %%a in ("%INPUT%\*.mkv") DO ( 
    set "filename=%%~na"
    ffmpeg -i "%%a" -c copy -disposition:s:0 0 -disposition:s:1 0 -disposition:s:2 0 -disposition:s:3 0 -disposition:s:4 0 -disposition:s:5 0
    "%OUTPUT%/%%~na.mkv"
)

It's running based on this command:

ffmpeg -i in.mkv -c copy -disposition:s:0 0 -disposition:s:1 0 default out.mkv

There is probably a way to get the script to do all possible subtitles numbers, or just list them out. I have seen 30 subtitles in a single .mkv media file.  Typically, only one of the first 6 subs are set as default. 

There is also a way to get this script to work in all subdirectories.  You would want to use this with care.  Forum posts on ffmpeg with a 'for' function suggests to work with ffmpeg-battch app to get the ffmpeg code exactly right to work for subdirectories.

https://ffmpeg-batch.sourceforge.io/

Remuxing should work quickly, around 20 seconds per 1 hour media file, even on a older workstation.

I think there would be to many file errors that can cause the remuxing to fail, that it becomes impractical to expect this to work as an Emby feature.

Technically, if you get the right commands to search through subfolders, you could remux thousands of media files with one command and clicking 'Enter'.
===

Demoting default subs also be done with MKVtools app and there is probably a way to do a command line bulk convert.

===

This seems complicated to use for a fix, but it's just having the knowledge to set it up where it can become just one typed command or a single mouse click to change default status for subs in 1000 media files.  The command would be actually easier to run than having it built into Emby.

[nospotify 184]

On 10/11/2025 at 7:54 PM, Luke said:

It’s not that simple. It would require more options to configure.

I'm sorry, how complicated is it to create a flag/variable that records the final subtitle choice (including 'none') when an episode ends?! Then when playback of the subsequent episode begins, select the same subtitle option. In the rare cases when the subtitle options for two subsequent episodes aren't identical, then use overall default subtitles setting. Why isn't this a trivial code update?