Tags vs collections. Which should we use?

[mwongjay 97]

With the release of the Revamped Home Screen we have the ability to add a large number of sections. From an end user perspective using tags or collections can have a similar result for the home screen which leads me to these questions:

• Which is more performant when using 10+ sections?
• What are the tradeoffs, if any, using one over the other?
• Are there any best practices around either?
• Which is more maintainable/manageable in the UI?

I've seen discussions that touch on some of these topics, but some are 5+ years old and may not be relevant. If any of these questions are already answered and are valid today a link to it would be helpful

[Luke 43402]

Hi, at this point they're kind of the same thing with two different names. Collections can also be populated from MovieDb. that's the only difference.

[mwongjay 97]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, at this point they're kind of the same thing with two different names. Collections can also be populated from MovieDb. that's the only difference.

Got it. Do you think Emby will consolidate those in the future?

The challenge I have with tags is managing them - I don't actually know how I can delete a tag today so I've been using collections which does have a UI for deleting a collection.

[Luke 43402]

I don't think they'll be consolidated as long as users think of them as two different things.

[user24 424]

Hi, I had similar thoughts a while back when I initally started using Tags for music groupings, but then later changed a lot over to Collections. A couple of years on - and I think it was the right decision for me.

I suppose at a general broad level, many fields within Emby can be used to group your own media however you like - Libraries, Folders, Collections, Playlists, Tags, Genres, Seasons, Album Artists... and more. So Tags and Collections can definitely be used for comparable purposes - Home Screen Section, or generally.

However, there are some clear differences between the two (I think this is mostly correct):

• Collections can be used to import certain media info (e.g. for Movies)
• Tags can be used to import certain media info (e.g. for Songs)
• A Tag can be given to a Collection - a possible way of creating Master Collections
• Tags do not seem to be global across all media library types
• Collections do seem to be global across all media library types
• Multi-select works for bulk adding items to Collections
• Bulk editing of Tags is not possible (unless perhaps with community plugin for some media types???)
• It's perhaps easier to create, rename or delete a Collection compared to a Tag
• A Tag cannot be renamed, it must be deleted and a new Tag assigned (unless through the API ???)
• Collections can group and ungroup items types on a Collection page and have a Sort Order choice
• Tags do not have an Overview field.
• Collections do not appear in all Library top header menus

There's probably even more differences between the two? When smart playlists etc. are built into Emby core, then there may be other ways to use Tags and Collections (separately and in combination) beyond what can be done now? 

I don't want to see Tags and Collections consolidated everywhere within Emby because I use them both for distinct purposes. Perhaps others do as well?

Edited September 24 by user24

[kbeck 80]

Tags must never go away. Really. I have 107,000 Tags and would have to go into therapy if they disappeared. 

Bulky Editor could stand some updates to be more user friendly. Would be really great is Tags could be used in some kind of structure. Like Comedy, with sub-Tags of Standup Comedy, Satire/Parody, Rom-Com........

The Inability to rename a tag is a hardship. I have a Clip App that I use to hold Tags so I don't have to worry about typing mistakes.

@user24You can Bulk edit tags with Bulky Editor in the Dashboard. It's not the most user friendly but I've edited 4-5000 tags at a time with it.

[user24 424]

@kbeck I'm with you 100% on this:

• Tags must never go away.
• Would be really great is Tags could be used in some kind of structure
• The Inability to rename a tag is a hardship
• Bulky Editor in the Dashboard. It's not the most user friendly

I've been doing a lot of experimenting lately with Collections and Tags across different library types (because Collections are global) to get two-level nested Collections, in a different structure to main media libraries. E.g. put Primary images into a Photo type library and then add them to relevant media collections (any library type). Depending upon what you are trying to achieve, it potentially opens up a whole lot of interesting possibilites...

Genres+Sub-Genres is one idea I haven't gotten to just yet. But plan to when I get time. This seems to be a reasonably popular request.

Yeah, thanks for the Bulky Editor tip. I tried it a couple of times quite a while back, but could never seem to get it work for music. Thanks to @GrimReaper earlier this year, I now have a very nice utililty to use for music Album tagging with Emby Tags - but it wouldn't be any good for your Movies/TV etc.

Maybe Emby will look at bulk-editing after home screen and smart playlists etc. is fully implemented???

[mwongjay 97]

@kbeck@user24 I'm curious how you both use tags and collections. Would you mind sharing more details as what you both touch on seem very different from how I use them? Here's how I use them: 

Tags

• Media visibility
  • I use Live TV and my m3u is managed in Dispatcharr. Events such as NCAA football games are added and removed from the m3u each week. When Emby syncs the m3u playlist it automatically creates tags corresponding to iptv groups. When all events are over and no channels exist the tag is removed which breaks dynamic media home sections. I created iptv group channels in Dispatcharr with no streams to use as placeholders to ensure tags are persisted in Emby. I manually edit the metadata for these group channels and add another tag "Hidden". Then for every user I set Parental controls to exclude the tag "Hidden".

Collections

• Syncing external lists to Emby
  • I create collections from external mdblists that users see on the Home Screen. Examples:
    • Emmy Winners & Nominations
    • Playing on Apple TV+
    • Playing on Disney+
    • Playing on HBO
    • Trending Movies
    • Top Kids Movies
    • Seasonal collections that are visible during specific months such as: Christmas, Halloween

 

[kbeck 80]

@mwongjayGlad to. I just use the standard Auto Boxsets to populate Collections. I created a few manually but found as I had to move files around for space, they would get lost. The same as Playlists. Nice to have an order but useless to me because they were forever changing. Tags, I use for lists that I find..... Top 100 Sci-Fi, Top 100 Horror. I also use actors I find interesting. I know this duplicates the People section but Tags do not change if you refresh Metadata.I also keep an Excel spreadsheet with what movies/shows I have for a particular actor, but also what ones I DON'T have. Usually the Filmography section from Wikipedia. My setup is 99% manual but I have 100% control of what's there and not there. One drawback I've seen to Collections is I've had a few to completely disappear if TMDB decides a Collection doesn't match their rules. Or if a rumored Part 3 of some movie gets cancelled. Hope I covered what you wanted.

EDIT... I keep thinking of things. Another nice things about Tags are they are Global. If there's a list that includes both Movies and TV shows, assign a tag in each and the search finds both and lists them in separate sections.

 

 

Edited September 26 by kbeck

[kbeck 80]

@user24 I bought Media Monkey maybe 20 years ago before I had Emby. It does some really good things..... Ability to update any field for any set of tracks. Like add a Genre to 500 files by editing that 1 field. I still use it exclusively for music although I have kept to an older version. My video library is 100% in Emby. 

Edited September 26 by kbeck
Add tag

[user24 424]

3 hours ago, kbeck said:

I bought Media Monkey maybe 20 years ago before I had Emby. It does some really good things

@kbeck I would agree that Media Monkey is useful. I vaguely remember using it perhaps 15 years ago (?) in the Windows 8 days. They had a separate Windows App that was great on large touchscreen PCs. But then Windows 10 came out and this App was discontinued. I also likely changed PCs around then, and with the updated operating system, stopped using it. Perhaps time to see what the latest version has...

At some point, think I have tried most of the well-known options. MusicBee has some nice features but it reminds me too much of being at work and managing Excel spreadsheets. There's a lot of other options that give me the same unpleasant experience.

At the moment, customized Emby Web App (CSS/Javascript/Plugins) plus Mp3tag, does most of what I want as a dedicated music management setup. For Movies/TV the Emby Android App is fine for my basic requirements.

Thanks for the info - most appreciated!

[user24 424]

@mwongjay Hi, I don't use most of the things you are describing -  Live TV, m3u, Dispatcharr, iptv groups, parental controls, mdblists... Also, Movies and Music Libraries in Emby have quite a few differences.

For Music, generally I use:

• embedded metadata in source files to create Album Tags because I can bulk edit them in Mp3tag and import into Emby Tags
• Emby UI functions to create Artist Collections because it's mostly easier and more convenient than Emby Tags

Of course there is cross-over with managing this within Emby, but I think that's the main fundamental difference.

I'm happy to share more ideas, but not really sure I have many that will help for your media/movie setup..?

Edited September 27 by user24

[kbeck 80]

@mwongjay@user24I ran across something with tags I've done and seems to work ok. Had a list of things that were sets of collections. The Hallmark Channel Film Series. I added a tag to each collection and when I click on the tag I get all the Collections under it. So it's basically a structure. I've not really though of other uses but I'm sure there are some.

[mwongjay 97]

25 minutes ago, kbeck said:

@mwongjay@user24I ran across something with tags I've done and seems to work ok. Had a list of things that were sets of collections. The Hallmark Channel Film Series. I added a tag to each collection and when I click on the tag I get all the Collections under it. So it's basically a structure. I've not really though of other uses but I'm sure there are some.

Interesting, there's actually another topic discussing Nested Collections and this method appears to create that type of structure. One example from that discussion is Genre > Sub-genre which might be possible by using the Home Screen Companion plugin for managing collections (smart playlists) of sub-genre and adding the genre tag to each collection. Then displaying it on the home screen with a dynamic media section filtering on the genre tag.

[user24 424]

5 hours ago, kbeck said:

something with tags I've done and seems to work ok.

That's a nice example of combining Collections and Tags! I'm curious - tell me more please...

Is this Tag page showing any other content, or is it just Collections and these contain the Movies themselves only?  Do the Movies have the same Tag - I'm assuming no, but not sure of exactly how Collections work for Movies. I've tried something similar for Music, but it only seems to work if I have a lower level media item added into the mix.

[user24 424]

5 hours ago, mwongjay said:

Interesting, there's actually another topic discussing Nested Collections and this method appears to create that type of structure. One example from that discussion is Genre > Sub-genre which might be possible by using the Home Screen Companion plugin for managing collections (smart playlists) of sub-genre and adding the genre tag to each collection. Then displaying it on the home screen with a dynamic media section filtering on the genre tag.

Exactly! That's sort of what I've been wanting to achieve, in some form or another, for a couple of years now.

I have a few half-baked ideas that I've been trying on-and-off. Things like:

• Genres > Genre > Sub-Genres > Sub-Genre
• Decades > Decade > Years > Year
• Countries > Country

There's likely various combinations of:

• Library > Tag > Collection > Item

that will achieve some of this. It's just a matter of finding them AND figuring out how to seamlessly integrate it.

My Music Library Header Menu Tabs currently look like this:

I decided I wanted more info at my fingertips (touchscreen) so used icons to fit in some extra custom tabs in the available space:

• Gray = standard tabs (but rearranged in my preferred order)
• Green = Collections management (via Photo Libraries cross-referencing because Collections doesn't show directly in Music)
• Yellow = specific Collections/Playlists (e.g. Countries, Decades)

Still a long way to go with it, but I'll need all the groupings that Emby has right now to achieve a good end-result!

Edited September 29 by user24

[kbeck 80]

On 9/28/2026 at 10:34 PM, user24 said:

That's a nice example of combining Collections and Tags! I'm curious - tell me more please...

Is this Tag page showing any other content, or is it just Collections and these contain the Movies themselves only?  Do the Movies have the same Tag - I'm assuming no, but not sure of exactly how Collections work for Movies. I've tried something similar for Music, but it only seems to work if I have a lower level media item added into the mix.

Out of town with only my phone (give me a break, I'm old). The good about what i did was only added the tag to the collection. All the movies in that collection then appear under. So 10 collections each has 50 movies.... 10 tags and all 500 are in 1 place.