Settings

Settings open in a panel from the right of the window, via the gear icon. There are five tabs: General, Naming & Tracks, Encode presets, Logs and License.

Changes save as you make them. There is no OK button.

General

Metadata source

Which service is used to look up movie and show titles and episode names for renaming.

• OMDb (built-in, no setup needed) — works immediately, no key
• TMDB (use my own key) — better coverage, particularly for non-English titles and episode names

TMDB needs your own API key, free from themoviedb.org, and stays greyed out in the list until one is saved. Paste it into the TMDB API key field just below: saving it switches the metadata source to TMDB. Remove key takes it out again and switches back to OMDb. For a step-by-step walkthrough of getting a key, see Getting a TMDB API key.

If TMDB is ever selected with no key saved — settings carried over from an older version, or a key deleted outside the app — a warning under the list says so, and lookups use OMDb until you add a key or choose OMDb.

Note

The TMDB key is one you register yourself, and it is yours rather than the app’s. FileVerdict stores it in your operating system’s credential store — the Credential Manager on Windows — instead of writing it into its settings file, because a settings file is readable by anything running as you and gets copied by backup and sync tools. The panel tells you whether a key is saved and lets you remove it; it never displays one back to you. See Privacy and network access.

Theme

Light, Dark or System.

Output folder

Where written files go. Leave it blank and edits are written beside each source file, which is usually what you want. Set it and both Organise’s Apply and Compress/Queue output are redirected there. With Organise into library folders on, it’s where the files that aren’t going into the library go.

Keep the original file

On by default. Edits are written to a new file and the source is left alone.

Switch it off and edits are written in place. That is faster and uses no extra disk, and it is the one configuration in which a mistake costs you the original. An encode always writes a new file, whichever way this is set.

Work offline

Stops metadata lookups, subtitle search and download, and update checks.

Scanning, classification, renaming, track edits and encoding all continue to work — only the lookups that add extra detail are switched off.

Note

Licence validation still runs. That is how your activation limit is enforced, so it is not something this setting can switch off. Once validated, it keeps working without a connection. See Privacy and network access.

Queue

For a queue left running with FileVerdict minimised, or overnight.

Notify me when the queue finishes or a file fails — on by default. A notification from your system for each file that fails, naming the file and why, and one when the queue finishes, counting the files written, failed and stopped. After the first three failures in a run, the rest are only counted in the finishing one.

When the queue is done — Do nothing, Sleep or Shut down. It happens once every file in the queue has had its turn, failed ones included. It doesn’t happen if you clear the queue while it’s running, since you’re clearly at the PC.

First FileVerdict counts down from 60 seconds, with Cancel and Sleep now or Shut down now. Cancel stops it for that queue only. The setting stays as it is for every queue until you change it here, and the Queue screen reminds you under its status line while it’s set.

Shut down doesn’t force other apps to close: one with unsaved work can still stop it and ask, just as when you shut down from the Start menu.

Note

FileVerdict keeps the PC awake while the queue is running, whatever this is set to, so the PC’s own sleep timer can’t stop an encode partway through. The screen can still turn off. Closing a laptop’s lid still puts it to sleep.

Sleep and Shut down are Windows only for now.

About

Installed version, and a manual Check for updates. The app also checks automatically shortly after launch, unless Work offline is on.

Naming & Tracks

The filename and track settings are read when a file is scanned, so a change applies to files added afterwards. To update a file already in Organise, add it again. Library folders are the exception: they’re worked out when you Apply or encode, so a change reaches files already in Organise too.

Filenames

Always set the file’s container title to the recommended name — writes the name into the file’s internal title field as well as onto disk. Worth having on; some players show the embedded title in preference to the filename.

Naming format — Plex, Jellyfin or Custom. Custom reveals Movie filename template and TV episode filename template, and the Movie folder template and TV show folder template used for library folders. The available tokens are listed in Renaming files. The folder templates are the exception to the rule above: a change reaches files already in Organise too.

Library folders

Organise into library folders — off by default. On, Apply and encodes put every file with a title picked into a folder of its own inside your library, making the folders it needs: a film into Some Movie (2015) inside the Movies folder, an episode into The Glass Harbour (2019)/Season 02 inside the TV shows folder.

This is your preference for every file. To leave one file out as a one-off, untick Move into the library folder in its rename pane in Organise; that choice isn’t saved, and doesn’t change this setting.

A file already in the library is never overwritten: the new one is saved beside it as another version, Some Movie (2015) - 2.mkv. See Library folders.

Tracks

Preferred language — the language treated as wanted throughout Organise. Drives which tracks are flagged as default, which are removed by Remove tracks not in your preferred language, and which subtitle the player is told to select.

English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.

Scan and read subtitle track contents — on by default. Off, scans are near-instant but only look at each track’s label, not its contents, so subtitle verdicts are less accurate until you read the tracks. This is the single biggest lever on scan time; see Scanning speed.

Prefer SDH subtitles over full subtitles by default — which becomes the default track when a file has both.

Remove tracks not in your preferred language — marks every audio and subtitle track in another language for removal. Commentary is judged separately.

Remove commentary tracks by default

Remove alternate audio tracks by default — alternate audio meaning a second mix in the same language, such as a stereo downmix alongside the 5.1.

Remove duplicate subtitle tracks — on by default. Removes a subtitle track that is a copy of an earlier one: the same language, the same lines at the same times and the same text, even where the two split a line into cues differently. Some files carry these when their source listed one stream twice. The copy is badged Duplicate and the original is kept, so nothing is lost. A copy with some lines worded differently, such as a UK English version of a US English track, is shown as Suggested instead, for you to choose. So is one that splits lines differently when not every line could be compared.

Keep only one subtitle track per language — stricter: keeps one track for each language and verdict, whether or not the others are copies.

Minimum confidence to auto-apply — Low, Medium or High. A verdict below this is badged Suggested and waits for you rather than being acted on. Higher means more review and fewer surprises; lower means fewer prompts and more decisions taken on thinner evidence.

Encode presets

Save, delete, set a default, export and import presets for the Compress stage.

Logs

Two views.

Encode history — one record per finished Queue job and per file written by Apply without encoding: what was done to which file, and for real encodes, the settings actually used. A remux-only job or an Apply records no encode settings, because none were applied. The Queue page’s View encode history button opens it too.

Diagnostics — the engineering log. What went wrong, and which external tool each operation resolved to. This is the first place to look when something fails in a way the error message does not fully explain, and the thing worth copying into a support request.

License

Your licence key, this device’s activation state, and when it was last checked.

Deactivate this device frees the activation slot so you can use it on another machine. See Activating your licence.

Where settings are stored

In your operating system’s app-data folder — on Windows, %APPDATA%\FileVerdict\ — separate from the installed application, so updates cannot touch them. Your API keys are the exception, and live in the credential store instead. Both are covered in Privacy and network access.