will moving media folder cause loss of custom metadata?

[justinrh 259]

I need to move some video (and maybe music) folders to another disk, then add that new folder location to the same library it came from.  Will this mess up any of the metadata currently on the media files (in Emby, not on disk of course)?

Edited January 21 by justinrh

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

I think that if you move the media and then add the new folder to the library and then and only then rescan the library you will keep the custom metadata you have. That works for me but I use very very little custom modifications so I might have just missed things that were lost on my last move, more than 4 years ago.

Be sure to turn off the automatic scans of the library and the real time monitoring before you move anything and add the folders before you turn the monitoring back on. 

I, probably, will be unable to follow up on this for at least a day but there are many others that can help better than I. 

[brothom 177]

What I personally found easiest when swapping drives an whatnot, is to make the Library folders unreachable.

For example: having a Movies library with the folder X:/Media/Movies I would rename that folder to X:/Media/Movies-old on the drive (Emby can't find it anymore).

Next I would mount the new drive, move the contents and add the movied folder back into Emby or just add a new folder if that's necessary. So:

1) Rename existing folder (Emby can't scan it, internal error but entries remaind)
2) Move folder contents to new folder
3) Restore folder or add new folder is the location has changed
4) Delete the old folder

This "should" work, but maybe it's best to test it locally first before moving terabytes of data.

Also: removing entire drives and reassigning them with the same drive letter has worked just fine since I changed servers last week.
No loss in data there, if the paths remain the same.

Edited January 21 by brothom

[ebr 16169]

14 hours ago, justinrh said:

Will this mess up any of the metadata currently on the media files

If you save your metadata in NFO files and images alongside it then all of this will come with the media with the move.  If not, and you've made customizations, those will likely be lost.

[Neminem 1518]

you can also use this plugin to save you metadata to media folders.

 

[justinrh 259]

Uh, yes, it messed up stuff.  Emby thinks all the movies have never been seen now .. 

 

Weird, though, that it happened for only a handful of movies.

Overall, it looks like it went okay.

Edited January 27 by justinrh

[Luke 42077]

If the external ids are the same as before, then that won't happen. But chances are they are not if you have had to go through a full fresh import and metadata lookup.

Quote

Weird, though, that it happened for only a handful of movies.

Then it sounds like overall it went pretty well.