Completed Bring back the old folder view

[Zelig 48]

As of EMBY server update to version 4.9 the folder view has change to a "windows explorer" like structure in which single item movies are not display as movies anymore but as folders.

This is being discuss here:

So the official request is to go back, or at least implement a legacy view, so we can have the folder view we've been having since the beguining of time.

Thanks

[cp41 42]

Please please please. Just give us the option. 

[mrmixed 77]

Thanks for starting this post to consolidate everything.  It would be nice to have a path forward.  

For the sake of documenting the full record, this has also has been discussed here:

And here:

And here:

And most likely a bunch of other places, too.

[mrmixed 77]

And this one too, which actually offered the best insight into what direction Emby is taking next (and it doesn't look good):

 

[mrmixed 77]

I put my +1 on the top post, and just wanted to further comment that a fix which restores the original functionality is absolutely necessary to support my continued use of Emby.  There is no workaround in the current system.  The suggestions made by the devs so far are incomplete.  To replace the functionality we used to have, we would need:

• recursive nested collections
• auto-create/auto-update/auto-delete collections based on folders (because manually making a collection for every folder and maintaining it is a ridiculous amount of work)
• combined Movie/TV tab for Mixed Library and other affected content types (@Luke at least seems to want to build this)
• the ability to hide individual collections from the "Collections" view (since right now, I only have about a dozen collections, which I actively use as an alternate navigation view to find content that spans folders, such as holiday titles, etc.) but I'm literally going to need a hundred collections to recreate the nested folder structure as nested collections to get them to display correctly in the Movies/TV combo tab.  So some Collection-view related enhancements would be desirable to allow the Collection view to have any utility at all, otherwise it will simply be redundant to any other view.

Alternately, the devs could keep the folder metadata layer that they insisted on stuffing into Folder View, provided that they also add a means of uncrippling the Folder metadata, by adding an option that single-title-folders would automatically inherit (and utilize!) all fields from their child title, and the UI would also be updated to allow "identification" and "edit metadata" actions on the folder level to propagate down into child single-title content.  Meaning that it would work exactly the way it did before, just with an extra folder metadata layer which now has extra logic to automatic getting copied around, instead of being naturally collapsed.  (It seems needlessly complicated compared to what we had, but if there is a reason we have to have a folder layer for single-title-folders, this is a way of making it functional instead of pointless.)

Edited November 23, 2025 by mrmixed
additional text

[mrmixed 77]

Finally, I also wanted to reference some posts from the other threads that I feel are worth following up on, or are at least helpful for overall context (colored text are my edits for emphasis).

[from "Emby folder display issue"]

On 11/14/2025 at 1:05 PM, mrmixed said:

I'm mildly concerned to find that you did get feedback on this change in beta and glossed over the real issue:

And I'm further peeved that you knew you were going to make a subset of users unhappy with this change, but ultimately went ahead anyway.

 

--

You took a request to make things work more like mixed library Folder View and reversed it to instead ruin mixed library Folder View:

On 3/18/2024 at 11:25 PM, Happy2Play said:

Most want the opposite of what you want.   But agree the are pros and cons as this applies to a specific need.  Most complaints are from the colapsing when there is only one item in the folder.

(I'm still trying to find the original posts of all of the people that were originally complaining about the collapsing folders.  In either case, I assume you wouldn't have had a lot of feedback from people who were happy with how it worked.  Hopefully this new thread helps to even things out.  And regardless, you didn't need to choose one over the other; you could have built a proper toggle and not the incomplete "jump through folder" option that only affects navigation and not presentation/metadata.)

--

[from "Folder view issue (last time i report this)"]

On 9/26/2025 at 9:19 AM, kikinjo said:

@Happy2Play Can u please run some test on Mixed mode library please, it is more clear when library is not tv shows. 

Distinction of folder is not the main issue here, it never was. Issue is inconsistencies between library's and folder views. 

Edited November 23, 2025 by mrmixed
added post

[mrmixed 77]

It's not a solution if the metadata doesn't also jump through the extra layer.

@MoenisCross-posting to the new enhancement request to fix this:

 

[Raelone 19]

Another vote for reverting this or making the old way at least an option.  The new way is useless in Folder View.  Since I have 2 movie libraries, one still behaves the old way and one the new, the old way code is still there somewhere (structure-wise both libraries are identical ultimately ending with a single folder with a single movie, ie Radarr layout).

[ebr 16169]

If there is anyone who prefers the new presentation, this would be the place and time to voice that opinion. Thanks.

[pünktchen 1409]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

If there is anyone who prefers the new presentation, this would be the place and time to voice that opinion. Thanks.

I do. What i do not understand is why was the option "CollapseSingleItemFolders" not exposed as a new GUI option inside of the library settings? Why don't you let your users decide if they have the one presentation or the other?

[mrmixed 77]

12 minutes ago, Tennis Fan said:

No idea why it changed but very happy to have the old view back!  

While your issue is unrelated to this particular topic, that is exactly the sentiment I hope that we will manage to achieve here.

 

Thanks also to @pünktchenfor advocating for user choice, even if their preference for this view is different than ours.

[Luke 42077]

6 minutes ago, pünktchen said:

I do. What i do not understand is why was the option "CollapseSingleItemFolders" not exposed as a new GUI option inside of the library settings? Why don't you let your users decide if they have the one presentation or the other?

That wasn't intended to be a preference, although for now it is the only way to revert the view. The flag will revert the library scanning to an older method that will drop the folder layer, thus giving you the behavior that you want. However this behavior also comes with other issues, particularly with scanning not working right.

The best approach would be to reimagine the old view as a UI feature rather than dropping the folder layer from the scan.

The quick and dirty approach would be to put an option for this in the library settings and have it come with the understanding that certain features might not work right with it enabled.

[pünktchen 1409]

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

The quick and dirty approach would be to put an option for this in the library settings and have it come with the understanding that certain features might not work right with it enabled.

Then just go for that!!!

[Happy2Play 9780]

35 minutes ago, pünktchen said:

I do. What i do not understand is why was the option "CollapseSingleItemFolders" not exposed as a new GUI option inside of the library settings? Why don't you let your users decide if they have the one presentation or the other?

Honestly, I have not been able to toggle either switch core/library to remove the additional layer in my testing in beta or release.

[mrmixed 77]

24 minutes ago, Luke said:

That wasn't intended to be a preference, although for now it is the only way to revert the view. The flag will revert the library scanning to an older method that will drop the folder layer, thus giving you the behavior that you want. However this behavior also comes with other issues, particularly with scanning not working right.

The best approach would be to reimagine the old view as a UI feature rather than dropping the folder layer from the scan.

The quick and dirty approach would be to put an option for this in the library settings and have it come with the understanding that certain features might not work right with it enabled.

I believe the only time I have a problem with scanning is when the folder name and the movie file underneath are different (for single-title-folders).  And I would categorize that as my own fault for being inconsistent.  Otherwise I haven't had any scanning issues.

I too would gladly go with quick and dirty.  I want to ask, "How quick?" but I will refrain from now out of gratefulness that the idea has even been broached.

[Luke 42077]

The ignore features are probably not going to work right with it. Also changing the option on the fly is a destructive operation that will cause everything to be dropped from the database and then rescanned in. Probably not a great thing to have in the library options UI as others might toggle it when they shouldn't. So maybe some other secret way to do it.

[pünktchen 1409]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

The ignore features are probably not going to work right with it. Also changing the option on the fly is a destructive operation that will cause everything to be dropped from the database and then rescanned in. Probably not a great thing to have in the library options UI as others might toggle it when they shouldn't. So maybe some other secret way to do it.

Nah! Just put a warning under that option.

[pünktchen 1409]

I would do it this way: When creating a new library, make that option toggable. For existing libraries, make that option read only, but still provide a way to change the option via api or something like that.

[Neminem 1516]

@pünktchenhow many people read those

[pünktchen 1409]

4 minutes ago, Neminem said:

@pünktchenhow many people read those

I don't care. If someone puts gasoline in their diesel car despite the warning label, they will have to learn it the hard way.

[mrmixed 77]

Speaking solely for myself, I can live with both the ignore and the destruction.  And agreed with @pünktchenthat a red text warning would be a good deterrent for people that don't understand what it does.

I would also expect we could still work around an ignore issue by further enumerating the individual contents of the folder to be ignored in the embyignore file (or perhaps ignoring both "foldertoignore" and "foldertoignore/*".  But either way, collapsing metadata is far more important than ignores to me, and probably to most of the people aligned with this request.  We are the compulsive filesystem people, after all--most would probably rather remove a folder entirely to workaround an ignore glitch if it meant getting collapsing metadata back.

[mrmixed 77]

@Luke, just for the record, I'm truly not trying to link every post in the forum back to the folder enhancement request.  I'm really not.  (Well, just most of them.)

However, it's only fair to caution that 4.9 contains other changes directly related to Folder View.  Given that the OP was using Folder View and a mixed content library, it might be prudent to wait for an upcoming update?

 

[Luke 42077]

multi-version and extras scanning also may have issues.

[C.S. 93]

1 hour ago, pünktchen said:

I do. What i do not understand is why was the option "CollapseSingleItemFolders" not exposed as a new GUI option inside of the library settings? Why don't you let your users decide if they have the one presentation or the other?

It's an impossible task to produce something that will please both nerds AND newbs.

The team's overarching theme in this forum is "We don't like options because it makes support more difficult". They seem to be searching for the conditions that will please 51% or more, so they can call it a day. I'm not calling it laziness - just a particular strategy.

It's understandable - we all want to make things easier for ourselves - but what makes emby easier to support often makes it more frustrating to customize. And since customization is what makes things easier for nerds, we find ourselves at odds with the team.

Personally I believe both nerds and newbs want options. The newbs just don't know it yet.

 

4 hours ago, ebr said:

If there is anyone who prefers the new presentation, this would be the place and time to voice that opinion. Thanks.

The inference I draw from this post is that it has to be one way or the other, so whichever side is more vocal wins. Correct?

But what if it's 51/49? Or 60/40 or even 70/30? Do you really want to ignore that many?

Nerds need to be able to organize their files. There are good reasons to do so, such as to make backups easier. I'm sure there are lots of others, but that would be the big one for me.

[ebr 16169]

1 hour ago, C.S. said:

The team's overarching theme in this forum is "We don't like options because it makes support more difficult".

Hi.  It also makes maintaining the product more difficult, introduces more bugs and, most importantly, makes using the product more complex.  Given that the VAST majority of users never investigate or change options, this is why we resist them as much as possible.