[Dawnb]

I have a hard drive with (331) folders each folder is named after a movie "Example: Batman Begins (2005)" and inside that folder are (4) more folders called ".actors, extrafanart, extrathumbs, featurettes" and inside "featurettes" is a video file called Trailer.mp4. Now I also have other random files called "Batman Begins (2005) - Banner.jpg, clearart.jpg, clearlog.jpg, discart.jpg, fanart.jpg, keyart.jpg, landscape.jpg, poster.jpg. Are all of these file really needed is was all done from "Media Companion" based on a youtube tutorial setup.

So here is the thing I just want to be able to start the program and click on movies and see all the movies listed and do the same for TV Shows and Anime.

I don't need to know all there images for the actors. I would just like to be able to do maybe an actor search if possible or a movie title search or a Genre search if possible. But I don't need the disc art I don't think or maybe not even a landscape.

I only want the main movie poster and the actors that played on the movie and such but I don't need every single detail about the movie. I just want the title genre description of the movie and stuff like that.

What is the best way to deal with all the extras. Should I just delete the random files that are not needed. Or will I see a random X or something when started kodi.

What is the basic and simplest way of doing this?

[Karellen]

each folder is named after a movie "Example: Batman Begins (2005)"

Good.

".actors, extrafanart, extrathumbs, featurettes"

Bad.
Kodi does not use the extrafanart, extrathumbs, and featurettes folders
It does use the .actors folder.

featurettes" is a video file called Trailer.mp4

Bad.
See... https://kodi.wiki/view/Trailers

Now I also have other random files called "Batman Begins (2005) - Banner.jpg, clearart.jpg, clearlog.jpg, discart.jpg, fanart.jpg, keyart.jpg, landscape.jpg, poster.jpg.

Good.
They are not "random". They are artwork for the movie that kodi uses.
See... https://kodi.wiki/view/Movie_artwork

What is the best way to deal with all the extras. Should I just delete the random files that are not needed.

I would fix the "bad" and leave the rest.
Start deleting files and your library will eventually turn into a metaphorical pile of swiss cheese.
Don't let OCD get the better of you. There are files that Kodi requires, don't fiddle with them.

[zebraitis]

This is just an opinion of one KODI user...  and this is what I do.  Not saying you should.


For movies, I don't create any subdirectories.  I just throw the movie on my shared drive.  

And then, every once in a while, I export to separate files.

For example, just one of one of my shared movie drives has 11,241 items.  And one .actors subdirectory.

And KODI handles it very well.  So I don't have to.

TV, I do a little bit differently.  My TV shared drive has show names (year, if required), and then "s01" "s02" etc subdirectories.

Unfortunately, that tv subdirectory structure really tends to increase my .actor subdirectory file drive use.   Slamming all the movies into just one drive save a ton of .actor room as a popular actor is only written in one place on the drive.

So, if you don't want to be OCD about the drive, it's OK.

[Dawnb]

each folder is named after a movie "Example: Batman Begins (2005)"

Good.

".actors, extrafanart, extrathumbs, featurettes"

Bad.
Kodi does not use the extrafanart, extrathumbs, and featurettes folders
It does use the .actors folder.

featurettes" is a video file called Trailer.mp4

Bad.
See... https://kodi.wiki/view/Trailers

Now I also have other random files called "Batman Begins (2005) - Banner.jpg, clearart.jpg, clearlog.jpg, discart.jpg, fanart.jpg, keyart.jpg, landscape.jpg, poster.jpg.

Good.
They are not "random". They are artwork for the movie that kodi uses.
See... https://kodi.wiki/view/Movie_artwork

What is the best way to deal with all the extras. Should I just delete the random files that are not needed.

I would fix the "bad" and leave the rest.
Start deleting files and your library will eventually turn into a metaphorical pile of swiss cheese.
Don't let OCD get the better of you. There are files that Kodi requires, don't fiddle with them.

It has been a late night out at a family members house we played some party card games for about 4 hours. So tomorrow I will be going through the "Movies" hard drive and removing all the bad and leaving the good alone. I thought that the extra stuff was placed on there from "Media Companion". But since all the images and stuff are correct I will leave them alone. And apparently "Trailers" don't go in there own folder they are put in the same area as the main movie but are titled "Batman Begins (2005) - Trailer.mp4" and are not placed in a folder called "Featurettes". So I plan to do some bulk deleting tomorrow. I plan to delete the folders called "extrafanart, extrathumbs" and then removing the "Trailers" from "Featurettes" and renaming them correctly. And I will try it out on my laptop to make sure it looks right to make sure the "trailers" and stuff will work on the desktop and then I will continue with the same process with all the movies. And then once done I will move on to the "TV Shows and Anime Shows."

I really want to thank you for the helpful advice. I hope things go well for me in the morning. I will respond back with the results.

[Karellen]

Batman Begins (2005) - Trailer.mp4

No spaces. No capitals. Batman Begins (2005)-trailer.mp4
And the files need to be there before you scan into the library. Adding them after the movie is in the library and Kodi will not know they are there. Same for artwork.

I plan to delete the folders called "extrafanart, extrathumbs"

The thumbs you can probably delete. But the extrafanart folder may have some good fanart images that just need to be moved to the correct place.
Media Companion should do this automatically, unless you did this a few years ago and you have an older library.

hope things go well for me in the morning. I will respond back with the results.

Sure. Feel free to post if you get stuck.

[scott967]

Yes, extrafanart/extrathumbs subfolder was something of a de-facto standard years ago that many skins supported.  Media Companion also provide support for creating.  Since then Kodi has made some changes in handling art associated with video that make those folders pretty much obsolete and skins have dropped support for the most part. 

scott s.
.

[Dawnb]

Okay so far so good I managed to fix a few things: But here is some thing I'm having trouble with still. I have not moved the hard drive to the desktop yet so I don't know what will be kept from the laptop to the desktop since the desktop will not have internet and will only have the information from the hard drive based on information per movie or TV show or anime show.

Example when I tried to click on the empty image for "Christian Bale" I seen that I needed to download a addon to get more information. Is there a way to get the information saved to the hard drive for moving iit from one pc to another.

Plus I like the idea of the information for "Collections" but I don't like the idea of "Similar" since I only want this based on what I have on the hard drive that way I can watch part 1 then 2 then 3 and so on. Not things I don't have available. Is there a way to edit the stuff that shows.

Plus there is a section for "Video", "Images" , "Poster" I will never look at any of this stuff I will just look at the actors/actresses and maybe director but nothing more really. But collections will come in handy to see what part comes first for some movies and such. So is this stuff editable and keep-able for external hard drive.

I would like to save as much of this info as possible to move without the need of internet for later on. How would I go by doing this?

By the way I am currently working on editing the main movie files and trailer files right now with "Media Companion" I figured out what to check and uncheck for the program to get rid of the extra folders and extra fanart that was not needed. so now I'm tinkering with what all I can do with kodi from the hard drive for a desktop without internet.

[Dawnb]

Okay I figured out how to fix the "Media Companion" now I just need to add the trailers to all the movie folders. Which is going to take me awhile since I will be adding them 1 at a time to a youtube playlist and then downloading them as a playlist with YouTube-dlp since that will be the fastest ans easiest way for me to do this since I tried to use "Media Companion" to grab them but it wont work for the trailers for some reason. I will be editing each movie folder by folder and removing what is not needed. I will not be keeping the extra fanart or the extrathumbs folders. I have everything looking good so far except for the trailers part. I even tinkered with the look of the kodi. So hopefully things will go good for me today once I get all the movies finished and then move on to TV Shows. and then my anime.

[PatK]

You could also batch rename the folder "featurettes" to "Extras" and employ the Add-on:Extras (wiki) and your trailer will be available as an extra. With the release of Kodi 21 (Omega), there is built in support for Video extras.  Given that, this addon has been depreciated.  It will still work in Kodi 21 and older versions, but it will be marked as "broken" for Kodi 22. https://forum.kodi.tv/archive/index.php?...731-9.html