Radarr: Support renaming existing movie folders.

[chrisallen]

Currently, when adding a new movie, Radarr will create the movie folder automatically and all is well.

In the case where a user has a folder for each movie, but the folder does not match the movies title, we could allow renaming it, which would keep all the files intact that reside in the file.

One use case would be if we wanted to allow moving from The Name (year)\The Name (year).mkv to Name, The (year)\The Name (year).mkv

[galli-leo]

Did you try using the organize option?

[fedoranimus]

Reorganize should do this, be sure to run "Update Library" before doing so.

[Flippage]

Can confirm this doesn't work. Also doesn't affect srt or other subtitle files inside the folder.

Folder remains untouched by "Organise" in Movie Editor or "Preview Rename" on the movie itself.

Tried on a few different movies.

[fedoranimus]

We don't support handling subtitles right now - that's a separate issue.

I will look into folder renaming.

[Flippage]

Any update on this one @fedoranimus ?

I'm just waiting on the renaming of existing folders before I import the rest of my collection :)

[fedoranimus]

@Flippage The feature works, but has not been merged yet. I want to add some UI options to disable it as well as write more test coverage around it. It's a destructive process and can screw stuff up if not used wisely.

[crockadile35]

ok i'm in the right message here. i'm looking for a way to use the organize feature to rename like lets say about 500 movies instead of 1 by 1. is that possible?

[fedoranimus]

@crockadile35 Organize will rename the movie files, but not the folders containing them.

[crockadile35]

i'm ok with the that setup, when i click on bulk import movies and then select the storage where they are, i can only import 15 out a time. it can import 100, nothing happens

[fedoranimus]

Bulk Import is not a released feature and has several bugs which I'm currently working through.

[DejaVu]

Not sure why Movies Folder renaming would be a destructive process.
Surely it's just renaming using the recognised file name and using the Meta Data scrapped to create the parent folder name?

D:\Movies is the Root of the Movie Folder (How Sonarr works for TV).
The current filename in D:\Movies\New Folder\Fatal Attraction (1987).avi

The required result _(as requested in the settings)_ under Media Management and/or Movie Renaming
I thought it was already doing it after looking in there thinking its implemented, seeing as the option for automatically adding a folder name correctly is there. _Organise_ should also do this for you rather than ignoring folders completely.

Even if it has a small tick box saying "Rename Folders containing Movies" and warning next to it.

[galli-leo]

@dafzthomas Movie Editor -> Organize

[SP3NGL3R]

This is the only thing currently in Radarr that's frustrating me :( ... +1 for sure.

[galli-leo]

This is actually in the latest release.

[SP3NGL3R]

Weird. I guess my build didn't update until yesterday. This appears to be here now. Previously when I hit the 'preview rename' icon it would pop with a blank list saying "all's good". But I do see it now. ... THANKS!!!

[greenxeyezz]

Tried updating library, then organize, radarr will NOT rename existing folders. Am I missing something?

Edit: Non Static Path fixed the ability to rename. All Fixed.

[glardian]

@greenxeyezz
The UI doesn't tell you this, but for the folder rename to work you must set the new static path property to no. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get this property to change in bulk using the movie editor. I've had to do it individually per movie.

Also, the way this renamer has been implemented doesn't work as I'd have expected. It doesn't actually rename the folder, it creates a new folder and movies the movie file into it. This is hardly desirable. This creates a bunch of duplicate folders with any files other than the movie file (subtitles, artwork, etc.) orphaned in the original un-renamed folder. Maybe we can have a toggle if we understand the risks and want the folder renamed in place?

This request should really be reopened.

[MONKiCODE]

Any ETA on this feature getting implemented? I just need it to do what CouchPotato has been doing for organizing existing movie folders.

[galli-leo]

@MONKiCODE It is already implemented. For now subtitles and other extra files are not moved though, since we haven't implemented support for them yet.

[glardian]

@galli-leo Is there a reason this feature was designed to create a new folder and move the movie file into it? Would it not be better to rename the existing folder? As it stands, I'd have to go through and delete the old folders for ~1000 movies after the "rename". Renaming the existing folder in place would also prevent the subtitles, etc. from getting orphaned.

[nathan951]

@galli-leo Is there a reason this feature was designed to create a new folder and move the movie file into it? Would it not be better to rename the existing folder? As it stands, I'd have to go through and delete the old folders for ~1000 movies after the "rename". Renaming the existing folder in place would also prevent the subtitles, etc. from getting orphaned.

Does it Rename the directory (so all files in dir stay in tact)?
Or will it create new folder, leaving orphaned scraped data in old folder?

[glardian]

Does it Rename the directory (so all files in dir stay in tact)?
Or will it create new folder, leaving orphaned scraped data in old folder?

@nathan951

It does NOT rename the directory. It creates a new folder and only moves the movie file to the new folder. It leaves an orphaned folder with any other files that you need to manually move or delete. This has been implemented poorly.

[jonathan987]

I use, Batch Rename Files Tool. You can easily found hier go to google.com and type BatchRenameFiles and check the first result that allows you to quickly rename all the files in a specified directory.

[kormic911]

+1 this feature should really rename the folder and not make a new one and copy the file. This seems to be a major oversight on the implementation of this feature which causes unneeded headaches.

[sho-87]

curious about this too. is actual renaming (rather than copying and orphaning) planned for v1?

[galli-leo]

@sho-87 Idk, depends on how much demand there is for this feature. Because for now, a lot of people seem content with the "buggy" solution we currently have. Also it probably won't be actual renaming for the final solution but rather fully dynamic paths. i.e. Radarr will either have a predefined static path (like it is now, with disk scan service, etc.) or it will just throw the media file at the path it just calculated (no disk scan service, etc.) and forget about it (and delete any old file it had in its db). Maybe it will also try to move other files (such as subtitles), but imo, I like to let my media player (plex) handle that.

[sho-87]

@galli-leo I think actual renaming/moving of additional files benefits various types of users:

1) Those that have an existing media library. This feature would make the transition to radarr easier, whether youre coming from couchpotato or manually managing movies. all of my movies were managed by couchpotato before moving to radarr and the files and folders were named like <movie>-<data>-<quality>. If, for whatever reason (e.g. change the naming scheme of my movies), I wanted to change the folder names and have radarr manage the movies I would end up with two folders in addition to orphaned files. Of course I could manually rename the folder and then point radarr to the new directory, but thats not feasible if you have a lot of movies. Furthermore, radarr (currently) only likes things in the <movie>-<year> format so if you have media with any other naming scheme you're in a bit of trouble. Also, with an existing library the folders already contain nfo/subs/images and its a bit redundant to grab all of that stuff again instead of radarr just moving everything across.

2) Those that want to use radarr for movie management and dont have a media server. I run Emby as a media server and Im not sure if it can move subtitles - it downloads them, but if I already have sub files then it seems more sensible to just move them. This is made worse if you use a subtitle service that has a daily limit on downloads (e.g. open subtitles). Further, I'm sure not everyone has a media server running Emby/Plex, and those people just want something to manage the movie files rather than to serve them. To me, management includes the moving of movies and associated files

3) Users that are new to the world of media servers and media management. I think its important to not break the user's expectation of how things work, especially if theyre new to this type of thing. Violating expectations is the cause of much frustration and many github issues. Especially in this case where (at least to me) it seems like the most natural thing for folders to be renamed rather than to create and move. It feels a bit uncomfortable to see an option like "Paths default to static" and not wanting to turn it off because its unclear whether it will do what I expect, or mess up my folder structure/naming in some way

Also, Im not sure if fully dynamic paths would address the core issue. If I tell radarr to rename a folder using dynamic paths, would I still end up with orphaned files, or multiple folders?

So, I'm still in favor of some folder renaming solution. It feels like a big quality of life improvement and would reduce frustration/misunderstanding/having to turn to external tools to rename.

Anyway, thats just my 2 cents. I realize radarr is still technically in development and I'm loving using it so far. I guess I just dont have the technical knowledge to know _why_ it currently works this way

[galli-leo]

@sho-87 Regarding 3., new users don't need to use dynamic paths anyways (60% of Radarr users don't even know what it is). Though I mostly agree with the rest of your points.

Regarding the why. We can only "rename" the folder, once the movie file is imported (into the new dir), in which case it's already "too late".

Anyways, I found out why it wasn't removing empty folders (as it should) and also just added a few lines to make it copy all other files in the dir, then delete it. I think this should solve it for almost all users.

[DesktopMan]

@galli-leo Question on how this currently works with folder renaming: Isn't it odd to rename folders on "Update Library"? Wouldn't it be better to rename folders when you organize a movie (or multiple movies)?

[JesseWV]

This is a feature I've been waiting to be properly implemented for awhile. In my opinion it should be an "Organize" button on the Movie Editor page. Obviously it should rename the folder and ultimately rename any subtitle or other files in the folder when subtitle support is added.

[galli-leo]

@DesktopMan @JesseWV I agree it's odd to rename folders on update library, but this is mostly a temporary mesure until we correctly support "dynamic folders".

@JesseWV Organize already works for movie files, since subtitle support is added it should work for them as well IIRC.

[cani1989]

Any update on this?

[JohnAustin16]

I had the same problem and with 800 some movies renaming folders manually was not an option. However, my need to be neat took over and I spent some time with python and came up with this attached script.
Essentially the script will go through a folder (recursively) of your choosing and find all files with: .mp4 .mkv .avi .wmv .h264 extension it then moves them into a folder that’s named identical to the movie file. I used Radarr to rename all my movies then ran this script to rename all the folders. This may not be for everyone since it will only move the movies and nothing else in the folder but it might be a building block if there’s any other python enthusiast on here.
Have a look at the code and if you like it feel free to use it.
PS: I am not responsible for any mishaps due to this code use at your own risk!

Folder_Renamer.zip

[marine1988]

im on last version 3 developer preview and no luck with this features all my folder names suck :( any idea?

[Qstick]

A folder rename is done on V3 when you initiate a root folder edit in the movie or movie editor... You can just set it to the same folder it is and itll just do the folder rename.