Atlas recon

Jellyfin naming conventions & NFO expectations

Standard folder and file naming patterns for movies, TV, and music in Jellyfin, plus NFO sidecar metadata format and configuration.

4 sources ~2 min read #194 media-server · jellyfin · metadata · nfo · file-organization

TL;DR: Follow Movie Name (Year)/Movie Name (Year).mkv for movies [1] and Show Name/Season 01/Show Name - S01E01.mkv for TV. Use NFO sidecar files (movie.nfo, tvshow.nfo, etc.) to override or supplement remote metadata; they’re XML-based and take priority over online providers [2].

File Naming Conventions

Movies

  • Folder structure: Movie Name (Year)/Movie Name (Year).mkv [1]
  • Year is critical: disambiguates films with identical titles (e.g., “The Thing (1982)” vs “The Thing (2011)”) [3]
  • Multiple versions: use format Movie Name (Year) - [version label].mkv (note: space-hyphen-space required), e.g. The Dark Knight (2008) - 1080p.mkv [1]
  • Reserved characters to avoid: < > : " / \ | ? * [1]
  • Metadata provider IDs (optional): add TMDB or IMDb ID to improve matching: Movie Name (Year) [tmdb-12345] [3]

TV Shows

  • Folder structure: Show Name/Season 01/Show Name - S01E01 - Episode Title.mkv [1]
  • Zero-padded episode numbers: use S01E01, not S1E1 [3]
  • Specials: place in Season 00 folder
  • Multi-episode files: Show Name - S01E01-E02.mkv [3]

Music

  • Folder structure: Artist Name/Album Name (Year)/01 - Track Title.flac [3]
  • Cover art: include cover.jpg in each album folder [3]

NFO Metadata Files

NFO files are optional but powerful sidecar metadata files. Local NFO data always takes priority over remote providers like TMDb [2].

Media Type NFO Filename Location
Movies movie.nfo or <filename>.nfo Same folder as video file [2]
TV Shows (series) tvshow.nfo Root show folder [2]
TV Seasons season.nfo Each season folder [2]
TV Episodes <filename>.nfo Same folder as episode file [2]
Music Artists artist.nfo Artist folder [2]
Music Albums album.nfo Album folder [2]

NFO Format & Tags

NFO files use XML with standard metadata tags. Common supported tags [2]:

  • Core: title, originaltitle, year, rating, plot, tagline, runtime
  • Credits: director, writer, actor, studio
  • Classification: genre, country, language, mpaa rating
  • IDs: imdb, tmdb, tvdb (and other provider-specific IDs)
  • Images: thumb, fanart (only the first of each type is used)

When multiple tags map to the same data (e.g., plot vs review), the last tag in the file takes priority [2].

Best Practices

  • Separate libraries by type: don’t mix movies and TV in a single library—Jellyfin struggles with metadata and browsing [4]
  • Enable NFO Saver: use Jellyfin’s “Nfo Saver” setting to auto-write metadata changes back to NFO files for future portability [2]
  • Automate with tools: Radarr (movies) and Sonarr (TV) automatically rename and organize files on import [3]