How to Fix Wrong Metadata in Jellyfin

When Jellyfin shows the wrong poster or the wrong film entirely, its scanner could not identify the file with confidence and fell back to a guess. Jellyfin gives you more direct control over the fix than most servers, because it reads names, ID tags and NFO files from your disk first. Work through these steps in order.

1. Identify the item by hand

In the Jellyfin web app, open the item, then choose ⋯ → Identify. Search by title, or paste a provider ID, and pick the correct result.

That fixes one item. If you are doing it often, the file names are the real problem (step 2).

2. Check the file and folder names

Jellyfin matches from names. The shape it expects:

Movies/
  Arrival (2016)/
    Arrival (2016).mkv

Check two things. First, the year is there; without it, remakes collide. Second, the Jellyfin prefix rule: each file name must begin with its parent folder name, character for character, before any version suffix. A mismatch can split one movie into several entries. Full rules are in the Jellyfin naming guide.

3. Force the match with a provider ID

The fix that lasts. Jellyfin reads provider IDs from folder and file names in square brackets:

Movies/
  Arrival (2016) [tmdbid-329865]/
    Arrival (2016) [tmdbid-329865].mkv

[imdbid-tt2543164], [tmdbid-329865] and [tvdbid-123456] all work, and you can add more than one.

Watch the syntax if you are moving from Plex: Plex uses {tmdb-329865} in curly braces, Jellyfin uses [tmdbid-329865]. A library named for Plex does not carry its ID hints into Jellyfin.

4. Set the metadata yourself with an NFO file

Jellyfin reads local NFO files, and this is the strongest form of control: the values in the NFO become the item's metadata, with no provider lookup needed. It is the right answer for home videos, rare titles, or anything providers do not have.

Malformed XML is ignored without a warning, so read how to edit NFO files safely first.

5. Check the library type and metadata downloaders

Confirm the library's content type is right; a shows library scanned as movies never matches. Then open the library settings and check which metadata downloaders are on and in what order. The order decides which source wins when two disagree.

If you curate metadata by hand, turn off downloaders that would overwrite your work on the next scan.

6. Refresh metadata

Once names, IDs and settings are right, choose Refresh metadata on the item or library. Pick Replace all metadata when you need to clear a bad match rather than fill gaps. Replacing all metadata also overwrites manual edits, so put the values you want into the NFO first.

Stopping it happening again

Each step above treats a symptom. The cause is ambiguous input: names without years, missing ID tags, no NFO for titles providers get wrong. Fix those once and Jellyfin has nothing left to guess.

More on the Jellyfin metadata manager page. Running Plex as well? See how to fix Plex showing the wrong movie.