Plex "Movies" folder extras import

[rweaver7777 1]

Hello, I want to import my folders from plex and the movie extras have "-featurette", "-interview", etc., added to the name of the extra inside the movie folder.  Emby wants those in their own subfolders.  Is there a way to import my 1000+ movies without going through them all and creating new folders?

I *did* look for this answer in the KB and these forums but didn't find it.

Thanks,
Rick

[Abobader 3499]

Hello rweaver7777,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[rweaver7777 1]

This isn't a "problem" with the software, just a request for help.  If this is in the wrong forum category please go ahead and move it.

To give you a sense of the scale of my problem, I have about 1500 movies and the import says 3157 movies now because the extras aren't classified properly.

Edited April 7 by rweaver7777

[Luke 42359]

Hi there, can you please show examples of how your files are named and organized ?Thanks.

[rweaver7777 1]

This is from the plex help page and this is how I did it.  Thanks for the quick reply.

/Movies
   /Avatar (2009)
      Avatar (2009).mkv
      Arrival-scene.mp4
      Bar Fight-deleted.mp4
      Performance Capture-behindthescenes.mkv
      Sigourney Weaver-interview.mp4
      Stephen Lang-interview.mp4
      Teaser Trailer-trailer.mp4
      Theatrical Trailer #1-trailer.mp4
      Theatrical Trailer #2-trailer.avi

Edited April 7 by rweaver7777

[Luke 42359]

Can you please show the contents of your own movie folder so that we can examine a specific example? Thanks.

[rweaver7777 1]

Hi, hope this helps...

 

F:\Videos\Movies\X-Men>dir
 Volume in drive F is Data 2
 Volume Serial Number is 501A-7D3E

 Directory of F:\Videos\Movies\X-Men

04/09/2026  07:17 PM    <DIR>          .
04/09/2026  07:17 PM    <DIR>          ..
10/11/2024  12:15 PM       977,584,186 Behind The Scenes-behindthescenes.mkv
10/11/2024  12:16 PM        65,422,769 Interview with Charlie Rose-interview.mkv
10/11/2024  12:23 PM       303,747,703 The Mutant Watch-featurette.mkv
10/11/2024  11:55 AM     4,077,122,996 X-Men.mkv
               5 File(s)  5,423,877,654 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  2,311,115,612,160 bytes free

F:\Videos\Movies\X-Men>

 

Thanks for your help!

[Luke 42359]

That does not appear to be following naming requirements. For example, you do not have a The Mutant Watch.mkv

[rweaver7777 1]

This is my Plex folder, not an Emby folder.

Why would there be a The Mutant Watch.mkv?  It is one of the extras and has "-featurette" after the name.  The movie is X-Men.mkv.

This naming is just fine in Plex.  What I want to know is if there is a way to import these folders without having to go create a folder for each type of Extra.

Has someone written a script to do that or is there some 3rd party tool to go through and do this?

[rweaver7777 1]

This is my Plex folder, not an Emby folder.

Why would there be a The Mutant Watch.mkv?  It is one of the extras and has "-featurette" after the name.  The movie is X-Men.mkv.

This naming is just fine in Plex.  What I want to know is if there is a way to import these folders without having to go create a folder for each type of Extra.

Has someone written a script to do that or is there some 3rd party tool to go through and do this?

[Luke 42359]

Hi, the main reason is that Emby associates extras based on filename, so for example:

movie.mkv
movie-deletedscene.mkv

something can only be an extra if it has the main movie attached.

what you're asking for seems doable, but it's just never come up before.

[rweaver7777 1]

Well, sorry to say, I'm going to have to stick with Plex, if NO ONE in the world has asked this question, converting a Plex file and folder format to Emby's expectations programmatically or automatically.  It's not reasonable to ask anyone to convert thousands of movies and extras to a new structure manually.

Just curious, why are you describing something that isn't on the Emby naming page at https://emby.media/support/articles/Movie-Naming.html?q=importing movies?  Below is a copy of what is there.

/Movies
  /Home Alone (1990)
    Home Alone (1990).mkv
  /extras
    deleted-scenes.mkv
  /behind the scenes
    video1.mkv
  /interviews
    video1.mkv

Edited April 21 by rweaver7777

[RanmaCanada 508]

3 hours ago, rweaver7777 said:

Well, sorry to say, I'm going to have to stick with Plex, if NO ONE in the world has asked this question, converting a Plex file and folder format to Emby's expectations programmatically or automatically.  It's not reasonable to ask anyone to convert thousands of movies and extras to a new structure manually.

Just curious, why are you describing something that isn't on the Emby naming page at https://emby.media/support/articles/Movie-Naming.html?q=importing movies?  Below is a copy of what is there.

/Movies
  /Home Alone (1990)
    Home Alone (1990).mkv
  /extras
    deleted-scenes.mkv
  /behind the scenes
    video1.mkv
  /interviews
    video1.mkv

No, it's perfectly reasonable as your naming conventions don't meet the standards. It's not Emby's responsibility to address it, it's yours, the user. As per what Luke linked to, you'll notice that the files are in their own folders. If you want them as extras in the same folder, you need to have them named properly, which you do not.

[ebr 16393]

16 hours ago, rweaver7777 said:

Just curious, why are you describing something that isn't on the Emby naming page at https://emby.media/support/articles/Movie-Naming.html?q=importing movies?  Below is a copy of what is there.

/Movies
  /Home Alone (1990)
    Home Alone (1990).mkv
  /extras
    deleted-scenes.mkv
  /behind the scenes
    video1.mkv
  /interviews
    video1.mkv

That specific example is for a single movie in its own folder.

The naming example Luke provided is supported for when you have multiple movies all in the same folder.

[Luke 42359]

@rweaver7777has your question been answered?

[rweaver7777 1]

Not really, has no one with an extensive plex library converted to emby, and did they figure out a way to do it without having to do every file manually?  If you don't know, where would I look to see if someone has tried this?

[Luke 42359]

7 hours ago, rweaver7777 said:

Not really, has no one with an extensive plex library converted to emby, and did they figure out a way to do it without having to do every file manually?  If you don't know, where would I look to see if someone has tried this?

Hi, we generally do support all of their naming without any conversion required. This is just one exception that honestly I don't recall anyone else doing before.

what you're asking for seems doable, but it's just never come up before.

[GrimReaper 4962]

On 4/17/2026 at 2:26 AM, rweaver7777 said:

This naming is just fine in Plex.  What I want to know is if there is a way to import these folders without having to go create a folder for each type of Extra.

Has someone written a script to do that or is there some 3rd party tool to go through and do this?

Plex supports both methods:

Quote

Adding Local Trailers and Extras

When you have your own trailers or extras media files, you can organize them in one of two ways to use them with Plex. Either put them “inline”, alongside the movie (in the same directory as the movie), or in a subdirectory of the movie’s directory.

1) Inline:

Quote

Inline

Local extras can be located alongside the main movie file in a directory named for the movie. They’re indicated by using specific naming at the end of the filename. Local inline extras will be detected and used if named and stored as follows:

• Movies/MovieName (Release Date)/Descriptive_Name-Extra_Type.ext

Where -Extra_Type is one of:

• -behindthescenes
• -deleted
• -featurette
• -interview
• -scene
• -short
• -trailer
• -other

 

OR

 

2) Organized in Subdirectories:

Quote

Organized in Subdirectories

You can organize your local extras into specific subdirectories inside the main directory named for the movie. Extras will be detected and used if named and stored as follows:

• Movies/MovieName (Release Date)/Extra_Directory_Type/Descriptive_name.ext

Where Extra_Directory_Type is one of:

• Behind The Scenes
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Interviews
• Scenes
• Shorts
• Trailers
• Other

Local Files for Movie Trailers and Extras | Plex Support

You just happened to opt for Inline, which doesn't necessarily need to have equivalent/comparable feature in Emby, they're not same software; Emby is not a Plex-clone, it is its own platform with its own features and its own set of rules - it just provides high-compatibility with Plex-setups, but it'll never be 1:1.

That said, it shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to put together a script that'll recursively go through those folders and move extras to their respective category subfolder and/or overarching Extras subfolder; gimme a few and I should have something workable.

 

Edit: Here you go. Python 3.10+ required. Test it on a single folder or small subset of folders first (Dry-run included).

extras_mover.py

Edited April 25 by GrimReaper
Added script

[rweaver7777 1]

THANKS.  This is exactly what I was looking for, except I didn't expect anyone to program it for me.  I just wanted to see if it had been done before and use whatever the previous person used.

THANK YOU for going above and beyond!

Rick