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How to Add Movies in Plex: Customizing Your Media Experience

Introduction

Plex is a popular media server software that allows you to easily organize, manage, and stream your personal media library to a variety of devices. With Plex, you can access your movies, TV shows, music, photos, and more from any device.

One of the great things about Plex is the ability to customize your media experience. While Plex comes pre-loaded with a large database of movies and TV shows available to stream, you may want to add your own collection of movies as well. Adding your own movies to Plex gives you full control to manage and stream your personal media library.

In this article, we’ll walk through everything you need to know about adding movies to your Plex library, from file preparation to library setup. Follow along to start building your ultimate customized Plex movie experience!

Step 1: Prepare Your Movie Files

Before adding movies to Plex, it’s important to properly name and organize your movie files so that Plex can correctly identify them. Here are some tips:

  • Store movies in a central location: Keep all your movie files in a single movie folder on your Plex server or attached media storage. Don’t scatter files across multiple drives or folders.
  • Name with movie title: Use the movie title as the file name, such as The Dark Knight (2008).mp4.
  • Include year: Put the release year in parentheses after the title, as Plex uses this to match to movie metadata.
  • Use common video formats: Stick to widely supported formats like MP4, MKV, AVI when possible.

Properly naming and organizing your movie files will allow Plex to automatically match them to existing movie metadata, pulling in descriptions, posters, genres and more. This enriches your library with more details and makes it easier to sort and browse your movies.

Step 2: Create Movie Library

Once files are prepped, next you need to create a dedicated Plex movie library. Here’s how:

  1. Open the Plex web app
  2. Click the Add Library button in the left sidebar
  3. Select Movies as the library type
  4. Name your movie library
  5. Click Add Folders and select your movie folder
  6. Click the Add button to complete setup

Plex will now scan your movie folder and begin populating your new movie library with all the properly named movie files you have stored there.

Step 3: Match and Edit Metadata

After the library scan finishes, check that Plex properly matched and pulled metadata for each of your movies.

Most movies should automatically match as long as you named them correctly in Step 1. But you may need to manually match or edit metadata for some movies:

  • Match: If Plex failed to match a movie, you can search and match it manually by selecting the three dots beside the title > Match.
  • Edit: To customize metadata like descriptions, posters, or genres click the three dots > Edit to modify.
  • Refresh: If you make any changes, click the three dots > Refresh Metadata for your edits to appear.

Taking a few minutes to check and tweak the metadata ensures the best experience browsing your library.

Step 4: Add and Manage New Movies

Once your movie library is created, adding new movies is a breeze. Anytime you get a new movie file for your collection, simply:

  • Add the properly named movie file into your existing movie folder
  • Open Plex and click Scan Library Files in the movie library

Plex will detect and add the new movie to your library automatically with all the rich metadata.

You can also manage your movies directly within Plex:

  • Edit metadata by clicking the three dots next to a movie and selecting Edit
  • Move or delete movies by again clicking the three dots and choosing your action

Over time you’ll amass a large collection of movies, so taking advantage of Plex’s robust media management tools is important to keep your library organized.

Advanced Tips

Here are some advanced tips for power users:

  • Enable Cinema Trailers to play movie trailers before films
  • Create smart collections to automatically group movies by genre, year, etc.
  • Share your library with friends and family so everyone can enjoy your movies
  • Use Plex plugins and tools like Plex Auto Languages to enhance the experience

Plex offers tons of customization so you can truly tailor your movie library to be perfect for your needs.

Conclusion

The ability to add your own movie collection is what makes Plex so powerful for personal media management. Follow this guide to prepare your files, create libraries, manage metadata, and more using Plex’s many features. Soon you’ll be enjoying your perfectly customized movie experience on any device!

With your movies organized in Plex, some great next steps are adding other media like TV shows, home videos, and photos. Plex makes it simple to build a centralized and customized media library of all your personal media in one place. So dive in and start enjoying the full benefits of Plex to manage and access your expanding collections across all your devices.

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