Give each film its own folder, and name the folder and the file with the title and the year in brackets. In our test, Jellyfin and Emby matched every film laid out this way on their first scan, and the layout follows Plex’s naming guide.
Updated 23 October 2026.
The layout
C:\Media\Movies\
Big Buck Bunny (2008)\
Big Buck Bunny (2008).mp4
Sintel (2010)\
Sintel (2010).mp4
Tears of Steel (2012)\
Tears of Steel (2012).mp4This is the exact layout behind the screenshots in our guide.
The rules
- One folder per film.
- The title, then the year the film came out, in round brackets. The year tells the server which film you mean when two films share a title.
- The same name on the folder and the file.
- Keep the real extension, such as .mp4 or .mkv, and turn on File name extensions in File Explorer so you can see it.
- Point the library at the parent folder, such as C:\Media\Movies. Don’t point it at your whole Downloads folder.
- Copy films into the folder rather than moving them, and keep your originals until everything works.
Download-style names
A name full of dots and extra words, such as Night.Train.1999.1080p.mkv, can still match, but it is a guess. Rename it to the plain title and year: Night Train (1999)\Night Train (1999).mkv. Library Check suggests a clean name for each film it finds.