TV Shows

TV Shows can be added to Jellyfin using the "Shows" library type.

Most common video formats are supported by Jellyfin, such as mp4 and mkv. In addition, VIDEO_TS and BDMV folders are supported for movies and music videos. VIDEO_TS or BDMV folders do not support multiple versions, multiple parts or external subtitle/audio tracks.

.iso files and other disc image formats should work, but are not supported. It is recommended that disc image formats be remuxed into mkv containers, or extracted into VIDEO_TS or BDMV folders.

File names containing special characters WILL cause problems. The following characters are known to cause issues: <, >, :, ", /, \, |, ?, *

Organization

Shows should be organized into series folders, then into season folders under each series.

Shows
├── Series Name A (2010)
│   ├── Season 00
│   │   ├── Some Special.mkv
│   │   ├── Series Name A S00E01.mkv
│   │   └── Series Name A S00E02.mkv
│   ├── Season 01
│   │   ├── Series Name A S01E01-E02.mkv
│   │   ├── Series Name A S01E03.mkv
│   │   └── Series Name A S01E04.mkv
│   └── Season 02
│       ├── Series Name A S02E01.mkv
│       ├── Series Name A S02E02.mkv
│       ├── Series Name A S02E03 Part 1.mkv
│       └── Series Name A S02E03 Part 2.mkv
└── Series Name B (2018)
    ├── Season 01
    |   ├── Series Name B S01E01.mkv
    |   └── Series Name B S01E02.mkv
    └── Season 02
        ├── Series Name B S02E01-E02.mkv
        └── Series Name B S02E03.mkv

Each video file may contain multiple episodes. However, they will be shown as a single entry containing metadata from multiple episodes. It is recommended that the video files be split into individual episodes using a tool like MKVToolNix

Naming

The series folder should be named in the following format:

Series Name (year) [external id]

The year and external id fields are optional, but they will help identify media more reliably.

• Example with name only: Jellyfin Documentary.mkv
• Example with year: Jellyfin Documentary (2030)
• Example with external id: Jellyfin Documentary [imdbid-tt00000000]
• Example with both year and external id: Jellyfin Documentary (2030) [imdbid-tt00000000]

The Season folders should be named Season *, with * being any number. For the best results, please pad the season number with 0s at the front to make sure each entry has the same number of digits. For example: Season 5 -> Season 05.

Metadata providers

Jellyfin fetches information about the media automatically from external metadata providers. The following metadata providers are supported:

• TheMovieDB (TMDB)
• TheTVDB (TVDB) (Shows Only)
• OMDb API (OMDB) (English Only)

Movies and show series can be named with a metadata provider ID to improve matching. They can be added to a file name in the following format:

• [imdbid-tt12345678]
• [tmdbid-12345]
• [tvdbid-67890]

Multiple IDs can be added in the same file / folder. e.g. Jellyfin Documentary [imdbid-tt00000000] [tmdbid-00000].mkv

External Subtitles and Audio Tracks

External Subtitles and audio tracks can be added with file suffixes.

/Movies
    /Film (1986)
        Film.mkv
        Film.default.srt
        Film.default.en.forced.ass
        Film.forced.en.dts
        Film.en.sdh.srt
        Film.English Commentary.en.mp3

/Shows
    /Show (2021)
        /Season 1
            Show (2021) S01E01 Title.avi
            Show (2021) S01E01 Title.ja.ass
            Show (2021) S01E01 Title.commentary.ja.aac

Each title/flag field can be a generic string, or a special flag. A file can have multiple flags, separated with .

Type	Flag
Default	default
Forced	forced, foreign
Hearing Impaired	sdh, cc, hi

hi collides with the Hindi language abbreviation. hi by itself will resolve as a Hindi language track, while hi in addition to another language identifier (such as title.en.hi.srt) will use the other language and tag it as hearing impaired.

Flags are ignored on containers with more than one stream.

Any arbitrary text not parsable to a language or flag will be combined and used as the title of the stream (if there is not a stream title already embedded in the file metadata). The last file in the above example will be parsed as an English mp3 audio stream with the title English Commentary.

Extras

Extras can be added to movies, show series, show seasons, and music videos in a few different ways, as listed below.

Extras Folders

One of the cleanest ways of adding extras is to place them in subfolders within your media folders.

Supported folder types are:

• behind the scenes
• deleted scenes
• interviews
• scenes
• samples
• shorts
• featurettes
• clips
• other - Generic catch all for extras of an unknown type.
• extras - Generic catch all for extras of an unknown type.
• trailers

Best_Movie_Ever (2019)
├── Best_Movie_Ever (2019).mp4
├── behind the scenes
│   └── Finding the right score.mp4
└── extras
    └── Home recreation.mp4

Awesome TV Show (2024)
├── Season 1
│   ├── S01E01 episode name.mp4
│   └── trailers
│       └── trailer1.mp4
└── interviews
    └── Interview with the Director.mp4

File Name

Some types of extras support a special option if you only have a single of that type. These options are to name the filename a specific word when stored in the same folder.

Supported filenames are:

• trailer
• sample
• theme - Audio file of the theme song

Best_Movie_Ever (2019)
├── Best_Movie_Ever (2019) - 1080P.mp4
└── theme.mp3

Awesome TV Show (2024)
├── Season 1
│   ├── S01E01 episode name.mp4
│   └── theme.flac
└── sample.mp4

File Suffix

If you would rather keep everything in a single folder, you can append special suffixes to the filename which Jellyfin picks up and uses to identify the file as an extra. Note that, with a few noted exceptions, these suffixes DO NOT contain any spaces.

• -trailer
• .trailer
• _trailer
• trailer - This is a space followed by the word trailer
• -sample
• .sample
• _sample
• sample - This is a space followed by the word sample
• -scene
• -clip
• -interview
• -behindthescenes
• -deleted
• -deletedscene
• -featurette
• -short
• -other
• -extra

Best_Movie_Ever (2019)
├── Best_Movie_Ever (2019) - 1080P.mp4
├── Preview Trailer.trailer.mp4
└── Making of The Best Movie Ever-behindthescenes.mp4

Awesome TV Show (2024)
├── Season 1
│   ├── S01E01 episode name.mp4
│   └── Preview Trailer.trailer.mp4
└── making of awesome tv show-behindthescenes.mp4

Show Specials

Show specials can be added in the Season 00 folder. If supported by your metadata provider those files will be matched. In case your metadata provider does not provide information about the special, it is recommended to use a name which describes the content of the special instead of naming it Series Name S00Exy.mkv. This is done to avoid wrong metadata being pulled for the special and to provide a proper presentation.

Episode numbering for specials may vary from metadata provider to metadata provider.

Specials can also be shown within a season if so desired. This can be helpful when they are part of a continued storyline during the season. This requires 2 settings:

1. The option Display specials within their series they aired in under Dashboard -> Library -> Display must be enabled
2. The season and episode they aired before/after must be set within the metadata.
   • These can be set in the Metadata editor or in an NFO using the airsbefore_season, airsafter_season, and airsbefore_episode tags.
   • When the Airs before season field is set but Airs before episode is not set, the special will play at the start of the specified season, before the first episode.
   • The Airs before season can also be combined with the Airs before episode field to insert it as a mid-season special before the specified episode. For example, if Airs before season is set to 2 and Airs before episode is set to 7, the special will play between S02E06 and S02E07.
   • With Airs after series, set the Special will be shown (and played) at the end of the specified Season. This will take priority over the Airs before season/episode fields if they are set.
   • When multiple specials have the same position, they will play in the order in which they are stored in the specials season. For example, if S00E01 and S00E03 both have Airs before season set to 3 and Airs before episode set to 7, the order the content will play in is: S03E06 → S00E01 → S00E03 → S03E07.

Note that this will show them in both the Specials season, as well as the season specified.

3D Videos

3D Videos are identified using flags in the file name. To identify 3D content by filename, the first tag is 3D, which must be combined with one of the following tags to specify the specific 3D format:

Format	Flag
half side by side	hsbs
full side by side	fsbs
half top and bottom	htab
full top and bottom	ftab
Multiview Video Coding	mvc
Anaglyph	Not Supported

The tags are case-insensitive and must be surrounded by either a space, hyphen -, dot ., or underscore _.

Awesome 3D Movie (2022).3D.FTAB.mp4
Awesome 3D Movie (2022)_3D_htab.mp4
Awesome 3D Movie (2022)-3d-hsbs.mp4

S01E01 Some Episode.3d.ftab.mp4
S01E02 Some Other Episode.3d.ftab.mp4
S01E03 Yet another episode.3d.hsbs.mp4

Additionally, 3D filename tags can be combined with the grouping functionality in movie and music video libraries. All text before the hyphen must match the folder name.

Movies
└── Awesome 3D Movie (2022)
    ├── Awesome 3D Movie (2022) - 3D_FTAB.mp4
    ├── Awesome 3D Movie (2022) - 3D.hsbs.mp4
    └── Awesome 3D Movie (2022) - 1080p.mp4

Multiple Parts

Content that is split into multiple files can be stacked together if named correctly. Files should be named as follows:

Movie Name (2010)
├── Movie Name-cd1.mkv
├── Movie Name-cd2.mkv
└── Movie Name-cd3.mkv

Show (2025)
└──Season 1
    ├── S01E01-part-1.mkv
    └── S01E01-part-2.mkv

The separator is optional between <parttype> and <partnumber>. <partnumber> can be any number, or the letters a-d.

Supported part types are:

• cd
• dvd
• part
• pt
• disc
• disk

Supported separators are:

• (space)
• . (period)
• - (dash)
• _ (underscore)

This does not work with multiple versions or merging.

External Images

Please refer to the external images section of the music docs while we work on a comprehensive page for external images