plex-collection-maker

Create a collection in TV and Movie libraries from a text file list of shows or movies. This allows you to back-up and easily recreate standard collections in your plex library.

This is an initially manual process to build the collections, for an automatic builder using external lists see PMM.

Setup

Virtual environment

Create/activate a virtual environment

# Virtualenv modules installation (Linux/Mac based systems)
python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate

# Virtualenv modules installation (Windows based systems)
python -m venv env
.\env\Scripts\activate

# Virtualenv modules installation (Windows based systems if using bash)
python -m venv env
source ./env/Scripts/activate

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Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Create .env file from .env.example with Plex credentials (server IP address, api token, and library names).

Public IP is optional if you will only run script locally to the Plex server.

Your Plex token can be found here

From the XML information of a library item (the same place the Plex token was found) you can find the Plex GUID of that specific library item to use for accurate identification. Otherwise, you can use the provided library dumping command to get a list of the names and GUIDs for all items in the provided libraries.

Create a config.yml file from config.template.yml with the paths to your individual collection configuration files. You will have one config.yml file, but you can have as many collection config files as you want per library. Be aware, if collections in separate files for the same library have the same name, the collection config in the earlier file will be discarded.

Usage

Below are examples of collection configuration files. Only the collection title header and items list are necessary to create a collection, but there are many other options available.

The outputs with Plex GUIDs are the result of the dump functions. These are also not necessary, but should ensure accurate item identification when adding to a collection. IMDB, TMDB, and TVDB GUIDs can also be used for identification, see Plex support articles on file naming for shows and movies.

If a collection exists in a configuration file but doesn't list any items, the script will delete that collection from the library. The script will not affect any collection not listed in the configuration files.

---

Sample movie collection config

collections:
  Alien:
    items:
    - Alien (Director's Cut) {tmdb-348}
    - Aliens (Special Edition) {tmdb-679}
    - "Alien\xB3 (Assembly Cut) {tmdb-8077}"
    - 'Alien: Resurrection (Special Edition) {tmdb-8078}'
    mode: hide
    sort: alpha
  Halloween H20 Timeline:
    items:
    - Halloween {imdb-tt0077651}
    - Halloween II {imdb-tt0082495}
    - 'Halloween H20: 20 Years Later {imdb-tt0120694}'
    mode: hideItems
    sort: release
    titleSort: Halloween Timeline 1
  Halloween New Timeline:
    items:
    - Halloween plex://movie/5d77682854f42c001f8c2c48
    - Halloween plex://movie/5d776c8796b655001fe33dc7
    - Halloween Kills plex://movie/5e89cf50c3075b00416ee7d5
    - Halloween Ends plex://movie/5e163304ef1040003f24871a
    mode: hideItems
    sort: release
    titleSort: Halloween Timeline 2

---

Sample show collection config

collections:
  BBC Earth:
    items:
    - The Blue Planet plex://show/5d9c086a2df347001e3b1e5e
    - Planet Earth plex://show/5d9c086b08fddd001f29a1df
    - Life plex://show/5d9c08662192ba001f30ef67
    - Frozen Planet plex://show/5d9c07f9e98e47001eb043cd
    - Planet Earth II plex://show/5d9c080fcb3ffa001f1b1bd2
    - Blue Planet II plex://show/5d9c08e546115600200adba2
    mode: hide
    sort: release
  Peanuts:
    items:
    - Peanuts {tvdb-78225}
    - Peanuts Motion Comics {tvdb-195611}
    - Peanuts (2014) {tvdb-297291}
    - Snoopy in Space {tvdb-367015}
    - The Snoopy Show {tvdb-389478}
    mode: hide
    sort: release
  Star Wars:
    contentRating: TV-14
    items:
    - 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars {tmdb-4194}'
    - 'Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi {tmdb-203085}'
    - 'Star Wars: The Bad Batch {tmdb-105971}'
    - Obi-Wan Kenobi {tmdb-92830}
    - 'Star Wars: Rebels {tmdb-60554}'
    - Andor {tmdb-83867}
    - The Mandalorian {tmdb-82856}
    - The Book of Boba Fett {tmdb-115036}
    - Ahsoka {tmdb-114461}
    - 'Star Wars: Resistance {tmdb-79093}'
    - 'Star Wars: Visions {tmdb-114478}'
    mode: hideItems
    sort: alpha

---

To make and/or sync existing collections

python main.py

You can also dump lists of existing collections to file, and exclude collection editing

python main.py --dump-collections --exclude-edit

As well as dump the entire contents of existing libraries to file

python main.py --dump-libraries --all-fields --exclude-edit

---

Also included is a command to lock all poster and background art in the libraries. This will stop Plex's metadata updates from replacing artwork. Only the .env credentials file and base config.yml (with the library names) is required for this lock function. Collection config files do not need to be created, and collection_files subheadings in the config.yml file are unnecessary. Just include the --exclude-edit argument.

python main.py --lock-posters --exclude-edit