Renaming files

Renaming is independent of everything else. You can rename a file without touching a single track, and you can clean up tracks without renaming anything.

How the guess is made

Take a filename in the shape these usually arrive in:

the.glass.harbour.2019.s02e01.1080p.web.h264-crate[sometracker.to]

FileVerdict strips the parts that describe the release rather than the content — resolution, source, codec, audio format, the release group, the tracker’s own tag — and reads what survives. The s02e01 marker splits the name: what comes before it is the show, what comes after is the episode title, if there is one at all. Here there isn’t; web h264-crate is release noise, not an episode name.

That gives a search query and a year hint, which go to your metadata source. The candidates come back and the best match is proposed — never applied silently.

The guess only has to be good enough for the search to succeed. It does not have to be perfect, and it is always shown to you first.

Choosing a match

Click the Rename suggestion row. You get the candidate list — title, year and a short overview for each — and can pick a different one. If none of them are right, search a different title, or type the filename yourself.

Underneath the picker is the match itself: poster, title, year and a short synopsis. This is there for the case a title and year alone can’t settle — a remake, a reboot, two titles a year apart with the same name — where the cost of picking wrong is a whole folder renamed to something else. Glance at the poster; if it isn’t the one you have, pick again before applying.

The artwork comes from the metadata source’s image CDN. You can turn it off in Settings → General → Show poster artwork, which leaves the titles and synopses working as before. Work Offline switches it off too, along with everything else.

Your pick sticks. Choosing the right show also fixes the episode title, since that comes from the same match.

Metadata sources

Settings → General → Metadata source:

• OMDb (built-in, no setup needed) — works out of the box. Good enough for most well-known titles.
• TMDB (use my own key) — better coverage, especially for non-English titles and less mainstream series, and much better episode titles. Needs a free API key from themoviedb.org.

TMDB can only be chosen once a key is saved: paste it into TMDB API key, just below, and the source switches to TMDB. If you don’t have a key yet, Getting a TMDB API key walks through it.

The rename pane always names the source its matches actually came from. Switch sources after scanning and the files already scanned keep their earlier matches, labelled as such, until you search again or rescan.

Naming templates

Settings → Naming & Tracks → Naming format:

• Plex — {title} ({year}) and {title} - {se} - {episode_title}
• Jellyfin — the same, with spaces instead of dashes for episodes
• Custom — your own templates for movies and TV episodes

Tokens

Token	Gives
{title}	The matched title
{year}	Release year
{se}	Season and episode together, e.g. S02E01
{season}	Season number, zero-padded
{episode}	Episode number, zero-padded
{episode_title}	The episode’s own title

A token with nothing to fill it collapses cleanly rather than leaving a hole — {title} ({year}) with no year gives Title, not Title ().

The folder templates for library folders use the same tokens.

Container titles

Always set the file’s container title to the recommended name writes the same name into the file’s internal title field, not just the filename on disk.

Worth switching on. Some players show the embedded title rather than the filename, and a file renamed on disk but still calling itself Title 03 internally will keep showing up that way.

Where the file ends up

By default, edits are written next to the source file. Setting an Output folder in Settings → General redirects both Organise’s Apply and Compress/Queue output there instead.

The Destination bar under each file shows where that file will actually be written, name included, so there is no guessing.

Subtitle files beside the video

Players only pick up a subtitle file named after its video, so its subtitle files go with it. When Apply or an encode writes the video under a new name or into another folder, files beside it that share its name, such as some.movie.2015.1080p.en.srt or some.movie.2015.1080p.en.forced.srt, are renamed to match: Some Movie (2015).en.srt. They’re moved when the source is replaced, and copied when it stays where it is, which it does with Keep the original file on and for every encode. A subtitle you added into the file in Organise stays where it is, since the file carries it now, and nothing already there is overwritten.

Library folders

Plex and Jellyfin both want each film in a folder of its own, and each episode in its show’s season folder:

Movies/Some Movie (2015)/Some Movie (2015).mkv
TV/The Glass Harbour (2019)/Season 02/The Glass Harbour - S02E01 - Low Tide.mkv

New files rarely arrive like that. They land in one folder, with names like some.movie.2015.1080p.mkv. FileVerdict fixes the names and tracks, but on its own it leaves each file where it found it, so you’d still have to make the folders and move every file into place yourself. Organise into library folders does that part for you.

Setting it up

It’s a preference you set once, and it applies to every file from then on:

1. Open Settings → Naming & Tracks and tick Organise into library folders.
2. Set the Movies folder to where your film library is, for example D:\Media\Movies.
3. Set the TV shows folder to where your TV library is, for example D:\Media\TV Shows. It can be on a different drive.

It stays on until you switch it off. It’s off to begin with, so nothing changes unless you turn it on.

Day to day

You use FileVerdict exactly as before: add files, review them in Organise, then Apply or add them to the queue. The only difference is where each file ends up. There’s nothing to tick for each file, and a whole season goes in as easily as one film.

	Without it	With it
A film	Downloads/Some Movie (2015).mkv	Movies/Some Movie (2015)/Some Movie (2015).mkv
An episode	Downloads/The Glass Harbour - S02E01 - Low Tide.mkv	TV/The Glass Harbour (2019)/Season 02/The Glass Harbour - S02E01 - Low Tide.mkv

FileVerdict makes any folder that isn’t there yet. A show’s folder is named with the year it started, and specials go in Season 00. The Destination bar shows exactly where the selected file will go before you apply anything.

Leaving one file out

The setting is your preference for every file, but you can make a one-off exception. Each file’s rename pane has a Move into the library folder box, ticked to start with. Untick it and that file goes where it would have gone without the setting: your Output folder, or beside its source. Every other file still goes into the library.

The choice is for that file only, and only this time. It isn’t saved as a rule: remove the file and add it again, or add it another day, and the box starts ticked again. Once a file is in the queue, its choice goes with it, like its rename.

Encode without organising leaves a file out of the library too, as it does the rename.

Files that stay where they are

Only a file with a title picked goes into the library. A folder named after a guess would split one film or show across two folders. So these go where they would have gone anyway, and the rename pane says why:

• a file with no match picked,
• a TV file whose season isn’t known,
• a film when no Movies folder is set, or an episode when no TV shows folder is.

A disc’s Play All title and its extras start with the box unticked, since there’s no episode for them to be filed as.

If the library already has that file

Nothing in the library is overwritten. If a file of that name is already there, for example an older copy of the same film, the new one is saved beside it as another version, Some Movie (2015) - 2.mkv. Plex and Jellyfin both read that name as a second version of the same film. (Outside the library, a second encode is numbered Some Movie (2015) (2).mkv instead, the way Windows does.)

Subtitle files go into the library with the video, renamed to match, as they do for any write (see above).

Your own folder layout

The folders follow your Naming format. With Custom you can set your own Movie folder template and TV show folder template in Settings → Naming & Tracks, using the tokens above with / between one folder and the next. Unlike the filename templates, a change to these reaches files already in Organise too.

When the title lookup can’t help

If your metadata source has nothing — an obscure release, a home recording, or Work offline is on — the suggestion falls back to a cleaned-up version of the existing filename. It is still shown before it is applied, and you can still type over it.