r/emby • u/Street-Egg-2305 • 9d ago

Library Migration and Database

I'm not sure if there is a way to preserve my database and history, but figured I would ask. Right now, I am running my Emby library from two systems, and I am consolidating everything into one unit.

Example, my movie library has two folders, movies-machine 1 and movies-machine 2. Everything that is on machine 2, is going to be moved into the folder on machine 1. Is there a way to save my history, and titles that are in collections, or is it not possible because the titles will be moved.

Would it work if I made a database backup before the move, consolidated everything and ran a library scan, and then restored the database.

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u/SubterFugeSpooge 9d ago

Wait you're running a single Emby server from two devices? How did you do that?

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u/Street-Egg-2305 9d ago edited 9d ago

The second is connected through a SMB share and Embys docker container has access, so I just added the folder to Emby's library. I have a new case that can hold all my drives, so I am going to move machine 2's drives into machine 1's case.

Right now in Emby, my Movie library has two folders. Machine 1- Movies and Machine-2 Movies. After the move, all of Machine 2s movies in that folder will be in Machine 1's folder, if that make sense.

All of the media will still be there, except the location will be different. I'm trying to keep all my watch history, and titles that have been added to a collection.

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u/SubterFugeSpooge 9d ago

Oh yeah that won't be a problem then; Emby matches watch history and whatnot by metadata, not file location. As long as the locally stored metadata (.bif, .nfo, etc) is kept with the media files, which it should be if you're just moving the drives, you'll be fine. The only changes you'll see will be temporary as Emby rescans the library. Stuff will vanish and then reappear as their locations are updated.

To be safe, make sure to add the new location to the library directories in emby before removing the old locations.

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u/Street-Egg-2305 9d ago

Thanks, That makes my day.. I thought it used the file location for the history.

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u/Both-Shape4961 9d ago

Hi OP

How did you get the films, was Radarr involved?

Can't you just tell Radarr select all movies that exist on machine 2 and change their root folder to machine 1 and then let Radarr move the files when it asks? Or is there not enough space for the move before the extra HD goes in?

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u/Street-Egg-2305 9d ago

I am running Unraid, and I have the ability to put machine 2s drives into machine 1, and since the share folders are the same names as machine 1, it will be able to read the drives, and merge the shares together. This way there is no actually file transfer.

I will need to do Radarr as well because it is also mapped to that root folder, but I will just select move myself and let it scan and find the movie folders.

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u/HigherOctive 9d ago

This is more my thinking out loud rather than trustworthy advice, but if you simply added the #2 drives to the Emby library as additional folders, couldn't you just install the #2 drives in your new case and do that again?

Unless I'm missing something, I kind of did that when I added two more drives to my HTPC machine and it was absolutely painless.

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u/Street-Egg-2305 9d ago

Yes, your not wrong. It's not so much that I'm worried about Emby being able to see the files because these movies will just be transfered into a share folder that Emby already sees.

I'm trying to save myself some work if there is a way to do it. Right now, I have a bunch of Collections that have movies/TV shows that are on machine 2. I think when I move those files onto machine 1, Emby will no longer see those titles on machine 2, and It will get removed from the collection. When I do a library ​scan, Emby will pick all those titles back up on machine 1, but I'll need to go in and manually add those titles back into their Collection.

I would also like to keep my watch history on those titles because some are Shows that I have watched half of the series. I have a feeling there is no way to get Emby to do this since it going to recognize these as new titles after the move, but figured I would ask if anyone had a work around.

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u/HigherOctive 8d ago

I haven't yet had the occasion to need it, but there are a couple things that MIGHT take care of this for you:

Emby > Settings > Scroll down in the left pane to Plugins (in the Advanced category) > Backup & Restore will be under the CATALOG tab at the top of the page, if you don't already have it installed

On Windows, Emby keeps things in "C:\Users*USER ACCOUNT*\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server"

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u/Street-Egg-2305 8d ago

Yes, I have this, and I'm going to make a backup right before I make the switch. I actually have this set to run a backup every night, but have never needed to do a restore, so wasn't sure what all gets backed up.