Your provider gives you a catalog of thousands of movies or shows, or you have a disk full of movies. Adding them one by one would take days. Import Movies and Mass Import Series read the whole source, look up every title on TMDB, hide what you already have, and import the titles you pick in one go.

Both screens work the same way: read the source, choose the titles, import.

Before you start

  • An admin account with the Import Movies permission for movies, or Import TV Series for series. See Member Groups.
  • One of these sources:
    • A provider account: server URL, username and password.
    • A playlist link (get.php, m3u_plus or a portal URL).
    • The playlist text, starting with #EXTM3U.
    • A .m3u or .m3u8 file, up to 20 MB.
    • Movies only: a folder on one of your servers.
  • A destination category and a destination server.

Step 1: Read the source

  1. Open Movies > Import Movies, or Series > Mass Import Series.
  2. Under Playlist source, choose a tab:
    • URL: paste the playlist link your provider gave you.
    • Xtream Codes: fill in Server URL, Username and Password. The panel reads only movies (or only series), not the rest of the account.
    • Plain text: paste the playlist. For series, each entry needs the season and episode in its name, like S01E02 or 1x02.
    • File: drop a .m3u or .m3u8 file. The file is read in your browser and nothing is sent until you click Analyze.
    • Server folder (movies only): choose the Server, then click Browse… to pick the folder, for example /home/media/movies. See "Importing a folder" below.
  3. Under Matching, choose the TMDB language for posters, titles and plots.
  4. Click Analyze.

The list appears quickly and the status bar shows "Matching against TMDB" while the panel looks up each title. You can start filtering and choosing before it finishes.

Importing a folder from your server

With Server folder, the panel takes every video file (.mkv, .mp4, .avi and others) in that folder and in its subfolders, so collections kept in their own folders are included. Files that look like series episodes (S01E02, 1x02) are left out. In a big folder, the bar shows the progress, for example "Analyzing the folder… 400 of 1,380 files".

For series that live in folders on your server, use a Watch Folder instead. It finds the shows, seasons and episodes by itself.

Step 2: Choose the titles

Each row shows the poster, title, year, rating and some tags:

  • Owned: you already have this title. It is skipped on import.
  • Not owned: a new title.
  • No TMDB: no match on TMDB. You can still import it, but it will have no poster or details.
  • Movies: a tag with the language and quality of the chosen version, and how many other versions the source has (for example EN·4K +2). Click the arrow on the row to see the versions and pick another one.
  • Series: the number of episodes the provider has for that show.

Use the filters on the left to narrow the list: In your catalog (by default Not owned), TMDB match, Year, Rating (TMDB), Language, Quality, Category (the provider's group) and Data quality. The search bar at the top searches by title and cast (and director, for movies). You can save a filter combination as a preset with Save current and use it again later with Apply preset….

Click Select all filtered to select everything the filters show, or tick rows one by one.

Click a title to open its details: plot, cast, director, a link to TMDB, the available versions and Category for this title (or Category for this series) to send just that title to a different category.

For series, the details also list the episodes by season. When the source is a provider account (a URL or Xtream Codes source), Load episodes reads them from the provider. If the series already exists in your panel, the import adds only the episodes it is missing.

Step 3: Import

  1. In the bar at the bottom, under Import to, choose the Category…, the Server… and, if you want, the Bouquets….
  2. Click Import. The button is ready once a category and a server are chosen.

Movies are imported in small batches. The bar shows "Importing movies 30 of 200" and a Stop button. Stop ends the import after the batch in progress, and what was already imported stays.

Series are imported one by one. The bar shows "Importing series 3 of 20 · episodes 40/250" and a Stop button that ends after the batch of episodes in progress.

When it finishes, the bar shows a summary: how many were imported, how many were already there, how many were skipped and why any failed.

The server you chose starts processing each movie and episode as soon as it is created. Imported titles change to Owned and leave the Not owned view.

When a movie has the same name as one you have

Movie names are unique in your catalog. If some movies you import have the same name as a movie you already have, the panel asks you at the end:

  • Import as separate version: creates the movie with the file quality added to the name, for example "Night Harbor (2019) 4K", without touching the one you have.
  • Skip them: leaves them out.

This is also how you add a 4K version of a movie you already have: set In your catalog to All, select those movies, import them and choose Import as separate version.

If the exact same file was already imported, the panel skips it and counts it as already imported. Running the same import again does not create copies.

Common problems

  • "No movies found" or "No series found": the source has no content of that type, or the link is wrong. For pasted series playlists, check that every entry has S01E02 or 1x02.
  • Many titles show No TMDB: try another TMDB language, or import them anyway. They are created with the name from the source.
  • Import stays disabled: choose a category and a server. The text next to the button says which one is missing.
  • A series was imported without episodes: the provider did not return episodes for it. Open its details and click Load episodes to see what the provider has.
  • I imported a folder and some movies are missing: the ones you already had are hidden by the Not owned filter. Set In your catalog to All to see them.
  • "No bouquets configured": create a bouquet first, or import without bouquets and add them later with Movies > Mass Edit or Series > Mass Edit Series. See Catalog Tools.
  • I want new files in a folder to import by themselves: set up a Watch Folder.