Plex Movie Box Sets¶

CLI Debrid automatically discovers which movies in your library belong to TMDB franchise collections, creates matching Plex collections for them, applies franchise posters, and optionally queues missing franchise movies to the wanted list.

Plex only

Plex Movie Box Sets requires Plex as your media server.

Movies only

Box sets are built from TMDB franchise/collection data, which covers movies only. TV shows are not included.

Overview¶

TMDB groups movies into franchise collections — "The Godfather Collection", "Star Wars Collection", and so on. Box Sets uses this data to:

Auto-discover franchises — every movie in your database is checked against TMDB to find its franchise membership
Create Plex collections — one Plex collection per franchise, kept in sync with your library
Apply franchise posters — TMDB's official franchise poster is downloaded and applied directly; a rendered fallback is used if none exists
Queue missing movies — optionally adds franchise movies you don't own to the wanted queue

Setup¶

In Settings → Additional Settings → Plex Movie Box Sets, enable the feature and configure the options below.

Setting	Default	Description
Enable	Off	Turns the feature on/off
Grab Missing Movies	Off	Adds franchise movies not in your library to the wanted queue
Version to Grab	Default	Quality/version used when grabbing missing movies
Collection Name Pattern	`{title} Collection`	Template for Plex collection names. `{title}` is the franchise name (e.g. "The Godfather"). Examples: `{title} Box Set`, `{title} Saga`
Minimum Owned Movies	2	Minimum number of owned movies required to create a collection. Collections that drop below this threshold are automatically deleted from Plex on the next run
Collection Sort Order	Release Date	How movies are ordered inside the Plex collection (Release Date, Title, Custom)

How it works¶

Each run processes in five phases:

TMDB lookup — every movie in the database is queried against TMDB to check franchise membership. Already-checked movies are skipped on subsequent runs. The first run takes approximately 30 minutes for large libraries; subsequent runs are near-instant.
Build box set list — movies are grouped by franchise. Only franchises with at least the configured minimum number of owned movies are included. Full collection details and posters are fetched from TMDB.
Sync Plex collections — Plex collections are created or updated. The configured sort order is applied.
Apply posters — the TMDB franchise poster is downloaded and uploaded to Plex. If TMDB has no poster for the franchise, a fallback Layout 1 poster is rendered using the CLI Debrid icon. Collections whose content fingerprint hasn't changed are skipped.
Queue missing movies (optional) — if Grab Missing Movies is enabled, franchise members not in your library are added to the wanted queue.

Collection naming¶

The Collection Name Pattern setting uses {title} as a placeholder for the franchise name from TMDB.

Suffix words are automatically stripped from the TMDB franchise name before your pattern is applied, so you never get doubled suffixes:

TMDB name: The Godfather Collection Stripped to: The Godfather Pattern {title} Box Set → The Godfather Box Set

Stripped suffixes: Collection, Box Set, Saga, Series, Trilogy, Universe, Franchise.

For franchises where TMDB has no collection name, the title of the earliest owned movie in the franchise is used as the base name.

Minimum movies threshold¶

Collections that fall below the Minimum Owned Movies threshold — because you deleted a movie or the threshold was increased — are automatically removed from Plex on the next run. No manual cleanup needed.

Schedule and manual trigger¶

Runs automatically on a 24-hour schedule. To trigger immediately:

Task Manager — find "Plex Movie Box Sets" and click Run
Settings — use the Run Now button in the Plex Movie Box Sets settings section

Manage Posters¶

The Manage Posters button in the Plex Movie Box Sets settings section lets you force-reapply the poster for a single collection without running the full task.

Click Manage Posters — a modal opens listing all managed collections
Use the search box to filter by name
Click Force reapply on the collection you want — the poster is downloaded from TMDB (or rendered as a fallback) and uploaded to Plex immediately
The button shows Applied ✓ when complete

This is useful when a poster is missing or incorrect on a specific collection without waiting for the next scheduled run or affecting other collections.

State file¶

CLI Debrid tracks content fingerprints in plex_boxsets_state.json to avoid re-uploading unchanged posters. To force a full poster re-apply for all collections on the next run:

Debug → Manage Cache Files → Plex Box Sets State — delete the state file, then trigger the task manually.

For individual collections, use Manage Posters instead.

Requirements¶

Plex URL and token configured under Settings → Plex
TMDB API key (used for franchise lookups and poster downloads)

Troubleshooting¶

Too many collections created

Lower the Minimum Owned Movies threshold. Any franchise collection that doesn't meet the new minimum is automatically deleted from Plex on the next run.

A collection is not showing in Plex

The franchise must have at least the configured minimum number of movies in Collected state with a Plex rating key recorded in the database
Check that the movie has been matched to TMDB — the TMDB lookup phase must have run for that movie at least once

Wrong or missing poster

Use Manage Posters to force-reapply the poster for just that collection immediately
To reset all posters, clear the Box Sets State cache file via Debug → Manage Cache Files → Plex Box Sets State, then trigger the task manually

Sort order is wrong inside a collection

Sort order is re-applied on every run — trigger the task manually to correct it immediately

Missing movies not being queued

Confirm Grab Missing Movies is enabled and a Version to Grab is set
The TMDB lookup phase must complete for the relevant movies before missing members can be identified