NFO And Artwork#

MetaTana keeps its decisions in its library database and writes NFO, artwork, subtitle, and trailer files next to your media only when a folder or a workflow asks for them. Those files make the metadata portable: media servers read them, and they survive a rescan or a move to another app.

For sample files and the field-by-field read and write table, see NFO format. For where the database, backups, trash, and these files live on disk, see File layout.

NFO Strategy#

Use NFO files when:

• you want playback clients to read local metadata
• you need a portable library archive
• you are migrating between clients
• provider availability is unreliable
• you want carefully reviewed metadata to survive rescans

MetaTana can import existing NFO files and write refreshed NFO files after review.

Local artwork dropped in with a new movie shows in Library as soon as the scan saves the file, before Autopilot looks the title up. A movie in its own folder reads poster.jpg and fanart.jpg there, as well as -poster.jpg and -fanart.jpg. A movie that sits directly in a library folder, or shares its folder with other movies, reads only the -poster.jpg and -fanart.jpg versions. Artwork in the folder above a movie's folder is never used. Local artwork only fills empty slots and never calls a provider.

A show folder's own poster.jpg or folder.jpg is the poster on show cards and on the show's page, instead of the provider poster. A poster you picked or locked in the editor still wins.

A movie that shares its folder with other movies, or sits directly in a library folder, gets artwork named after the file (Heat (1995)-poster.jpg) instead of poster.jpg, so other titles in that folder don't pick it up. This includes artwork you import in the editor. See File layout.

Trust Your Existing NFOs And Artwork#

Each folder can trust its own NFOs and artwork. The switch is Trust existing NFOs and artwork in this folder, under More options in the folder's Edit folder drawer on Folders. It saves as soon as you flip it and is not shown when you first add a folder.

When it is on, for titles MetaTana identified from an NFO in that folder:

• Titles whose NFO has provider IDs are not matched again, and Autopilot leaves them alone, so it does not rescrape, rename, or rewrite their NFOs.
• Providers only fill fields that are empty (overview, genres, release date, runtime, cast, content rating, rating, poster, or fanart). Values you already have are kept, including ratings. When nothing is empty, no provider is called.
• Poster and fanart files already next to the media are used as they are. Only missing artwork is fetched.
• NFOs are rewritten only when you ask.

It is on for folders brought in with the tinyMediaManager importer (the importer asks), and a folder with no choice yet behaves as trusted. After a folder's first scan, MetaTana sets it on when more than half of the scanned titles have an NFO with provider IDs, and off otherwise. Turn it off when you want provider data to replace what your NFOs say; that applies to later scans and scrapes, and you can rescrape titles in Library to refresh them now.

Autopilot Asks Before Its First Write#

Autopilot asks once per folder before it writes NFO or artwork files there for the first time. Until you answer, it saves metadata in MetaTana only and holds the files. Approved renames and episode details still go ahead.

The question appears in the Inbox under Files to write and in the First write section of the folder's Edit folder drawer on Folders, and Home's Inbox card counts it with the waiting decisions:

Autopilot is ready to write 12 NFO files and 30 artwork files into Movies. Nothing has been written yet.

• Write them writes every held file and lets Autopilot keep that folder's files up to date from then on.
• Show me the list lists each file with what would happen to it: New file, Replaces an existing file, Already there, kept, Nothing to fetch, Folder not reachable, or Can't write this one.
• Don't write files for this folder drops the held files. Autopilot then writes no NFO or artwork files there, even with a media center preset; metadata still updates in MetaTana. To change your mind, open the folder's Edit folder drawer on Folders and select Ask me again under First write.

Folders where Autopilot has already written files count as approved and are not asked. Scrapes and rewrites you start yourself are not held. Titles you approve from a waiting Autopilot run's review list are held with the rest until you answer.

NFO Format Settings#

Open Settings › Files › NFO files. Changes save automatically.

Flavour: pick the media center you use:

More options (all off by default):

• Write a short outline: create a short plot outline from the full plot.
• Include stream details: embed technical media information.
• Write artwork URLs: add poster and fanart URLs to the NFO.
• Lock data: shown only for Emby; stops Emby overwriting NFO metadata.
• Single studio: write only the first studio.

MetaTana writes NFO files only for folders with file output turned on: pick your player under For your player when you add a folder, or turn on Write NFO files and pick the Player in the folder's Edit folder drawer on Folders. Settings › Files › Media player preset sets the default. None writes no NFO or artwork files. A scrape can also write NFO through its NFO option.

NFO writes replace the fields MetaTana manages, keep unknown or hand-added XML, and skip the write when nothing changed. To write a clean file from current metadata only, choose the Clean NFO policy in Library's bulk sidecar actions.

A file that holds several episodes (for example Show.S01E01-E03.mkv) gets one block per episode in every NFO format. Rewriting updates each episode's block in place and keeps blocks for other episodes, and MetaTana reads such an NFO back as the full episode list.

Replaced Files And Undo#

Before MetaTana replaces an existing NFO or artwork file, from a scrape, a rewrite, or an Autopilot run, it keeps the old file in the replaced/ folder of one hidden .metatana-trash folder at the root of the library folder. Undo on the scrape toast or in Activity puts the old files back, even after a later rename or organize moved the file. If any of those files changed after MetaTana wrote it, Undo changes nothing and says which file changed. Undo moves the current file to the trash's undo/ folder instead of deleting it, and removes folders it left empty. Trailer fetches are not kept, so a run that fetched a trailer cannot be undone.

Limits on the trash:

• Large files: a file over 20 MB is replaced without a copy, so Undo can't restore it.
• Low space: if keeping a copy would leave less than 1 GB free on that drive, MetaTana replaces the file without a copy instead of stopping the write. Undo can't restore those files either, and the result says why ("the drive is almost full, so no copy was kept").
• Size limit: when the whole trash grows past 5 GB, MetaTana deletes the oldest kept files first.
• Age: kept files are removed after 30 days.

Settings › Maintenance › Trash shows the trash size and changes how many days to keep files, the largest file to keep (in MB), and the size limit (in GB), or empties it. See Recover from a bad rename.

Rewrite NFO After Edits#

When MetaTana's metadata is newer than the NFO on disk, rewrite it:

• One title: open its page and select Rewrite NFO.
• A batch: open Library › Needs attention, then Metadata tasks. Use Rewrite NFO on a task, Rewrite Visible NFO for every file-backed row on the page, or Repair Visible Rows under Stale Output Rows.

These rewrites use the Flavour in Settings › Files › NFO files.

Repair NFO in a server's Review differences on Sync is different: it only updates watched and progress state in existing NFO files.

Disc Folders#

For disc folders, movie sidecars belong at the movie root. A Blu-ray writes movie.nfo and artwork beside BDMV, and a DVD writes them beside VIDEO_TS; MetaTana does not write beside an internal stream file.

Artwork Strategy#

Common artwork families:

• poster
• fanart or backdrop
• banner
• logo
• clearart
• discart
• landscape
• keyart
• actor images
• episode stills

Not every provider has every kind of artwork for every media type. Missing artwork usually means the provider doesn't have it, unless another approved provider does.

Bulk artwork previews flag a broken local artwork file (unreadable, or saved with the wrong extension) as repairable when a provider has a replacement. The Improve artwork policy replaces artwork only when a larger version of the same image is available. Locking artwork keeps MetaTana from replacing it later; it does not change the files on disk.

The extra fanart gallery in the editor's Artwork tab lets you paste, browse, select, reorder, lock, and delete images.

Client Compatibility#

Different playback clients import different local metadata fields. These docs say which fields a client ignores instead of claiming every client reads every sidecar file.

Kodi, Jellyfin, Emby, and Plex can each have different behavior for season NFO, movie versions, artwork names, streamdetails, and external audio/subtitle facts.

MetaTana writes the artwork and subtitle names each server reads:

• Plex: poster.jpg and fanart.jpg in show and movie folders, an episode image named exactly like the episode file (S01E01 - Rose.jpg), and subtitles such as Movie.en.sdh.srt. Plex reads a two- or three-letter language code (en or eng) with .forced, .sdh, or .cc.
• Kodi, Emby, and Jellyfin: discart.png, landscape.jpg, and extra backdrops in extrafanart/fanart1.jpg, fanart2.jpg, and so on. A library that already has disc.png or thumb.jpg keeps them. Movies that share one folder get no extrafanart/, extrathumbs/, or .actors/ folder.
• Existing artwork: Autopilot keeps a readable poster or other image already in the folder and replaces only broken ones. Rescrape still replaces, with Undo.
• Collections: set artwork goes in a set folder only for two or more titles, never inside a movie's own folder. Kodi reads it from its Movie set information folder. See File layout.
• Every format: season 0's season.nfo keeps the title "Specials", and a movie's collection is written as , the only place Jellyfin reads the collection's TMDb ID.

The full table is in File layout.

When A Write Is Blocked#

If the library is offline, not responding, or read-only, MetaTana reports the path and does not start the sidecar write. The result confirms that it started no provider, queue, metadata, or file work. Fix the mount or permission, then retry the same action. See Sidecar didn't appear.