Library

The Library is the list of every TV series and movie Arclight manages for you. Add a title, tell Arclight which quality you want, and it finds the releases, downloads them, renames them and files them in your media folders. This page explains how to add titles, what “monitored” means, how the details pages work, how to keep more than one version (for example 1080p and 4K), and the cleanup tools: Retention, Hygiene and Scene mapping.

In the left menu the Library group has TV, Movies, Collections, Add new, Retention and Hygiene. Retention and Hygiene are for administrators only.

TV and Movies pages

Library > TV and Library > Movies show everything you have added. Use the Library type switch at the top to jump between series, movies and collections.

View: Posters (a grid, with a Poster size slider), Table or Overview. Your choice is remembered in your browser.
Sort by: Title, Date added, Year, Size on disk or Progress. Click again to flip the direction.
Filter by title: type to narrow the list.
Filters: Monitored and unmonitored / Monitored / Unmonitored, Any profile (a quality profile), Any tag, Any status, and Missing files. Clear filters resets them.
- Series statuses are Continuing, Ended and Upcoming. Movie statuses are TBA, Announced, In cinemas and Released.
Progress: for a series, the number of episodes on disk out of the number that exist so far.

A new install shows “No series yet” or “No movies yet” with a button to Add series or Add movie, or to Import folder if you already have files on disk.

Bulk actions

Every library list can act on many items at once: the TV and Movies pages (all views), a series’ episodes, the Music and Audiobooks pages, an artist’s albums, an author’s books, Collections, Wanted (Missing and Cutoff unmet), Hygiene and Subtitles > Wanted.

Press Select in the page header (on a series page Select episodes, on an artist page Select albums, on an author page Select books). Tables also have a checkbox on every row and a select-all box in the header.
Tick what you want. Select all N in the bar takes every item the list shows with its current filter. On paged lists (Wanted, Subtitles > Wanted) it takes every item on the list, not just the current page. On a series page, Select season next to a season ticks all of its episodes.
Pick an action in the bar at the bottom. At phone width the actions are folded into one Actions menu.

Action	Where	What it does
Search	TV, Movies, episodes, Music, Audiobooks, albums, books	Searches every selected item, like the Search button on its page.
Search missing	TV, Movies, episodes, Collections	Searches only the selected items that are monitored and have no file yet (the Wanted > Missing rules).
Search for upgrades	TV, Movies, episodes, Collections, Wanted > Cutoff unmet	Searches only the selected items whose file is below the quality profile’s cutoff (the Wanted > Cutoff unmet rules). Items whose profile does not allow upgrades are skipped.
Search selected	Wanted > Missing, Subtitles > Wanted	Searches the selected items (or subtitles for the selected files).
Monitor / Unmonitor	everywhere except Hygiene and Subtitles	Turns monitoring on or off. Wanted only offers Unmonitor.
Profile	TV, Movies, Music, Audiobooks	Sets the quality profile. For TV and Movies this opens the profile change preview first.
Root folder	TV, Movies, Music, Audiobooks	Moves the items to another root folder.
Tags	TV, Movies, Music, Audiobooks	Adds or removes one tag. To tag items automatically, use tag rules.
Refresh	TV, Movies, Music, Audiobooks, Collections	Refreshes the metadata of every selected item.
Rename files	TV, Movies, episodes	Opens a preview of every file that does not match your naming settings. Untick the ones to leave alone, then Rename.
Add additional…	TV, Movies	Adds an audio or subtitle language (see below).
Map to best match	Hygiene > Orphans	Imports each selected orphan file into its best suggested match. Files without a usable match are skipped.
Delete	TV, Movies, Music, Audiobooks, books, Hygiene	Opens the delete dialog. It has the same Delete files option as deleting one item.
Replace / Re-check / Ignore / Delete file	Hygiene > Health	The health scan’s fix actions on the selected problems. See Library health scan.
Delete files	episodes	Deletes the selected episodes’ files from disk. The episodes stay in the library.

Searches, refreshes and subtitle searches run in the background as one job, so you can leave the page. A toast tells you how many items went into the job and how many were skipped (for example, items already at cutoff when you asked for upgrades). The job appears in System > Tasks.

Add new

Open Library > Add new (or the Add series / Add movie button).

Type a title into Search TMDB (for example “The Expanse”) and use the Result type filter if needed. Results come from TMDB. Titles already in your library link to their page.
Click a result. The add dialog opens.
Fill in the form (below) and click Add series or Add movie.

If you see “TMDB has no API key”, click Add TMDB key, which takes you to Settings > General. Searching does not work without a key.

If you already have files on disk, use Import folder, which opens Activity > Manual import.

The add form

Field	Default	What it does
Root folder	none	Where the title is stored. Pick one, or Browse to add a new root folder. Titles go into `<root folder>/<Title (Year)>`; the Destination line previews the path. A root folder marked inaccessible cannot be used.
Quality profile	none	Which qualities are accepted and when to stop upgrading. See Quality profiles.
Monitor (series)	All episodes	Which episodes to monitor right away (see below).
Series type (series)	Standard	Standard, Daily or Anime (see below).
Season folders (series)	on	Put each season in its own folder.
Monitored (movies)	on	Search for the movie once it is available.
Minimum availability (movies)	Released	Announced, In cinemas or Released. When a movie is wanted. See Wanted.
Language profile	Default	Which subtitle languages you want. See Subtitles.
Tags	none	Optional labels.
Search on add	off	Searches for missing episodes or the movie right away.

The add dialog does not offer multiple versions. Add the title first, then use Edit to add versions (see “Multiple versions”).

What monitored means

“Monitored” is Arclight’s word for “I want this”. Only monitored items are searched for, grabbed, upgraded and shown on the Calendar by default. Unmonitored items stay in your library but Arclight leaves them alone.

For a series there are three switches that work together:

Level	Where	Effect
Series	Switch at the top of the series page, or Monitored in Edit	Master switch. If off, no episode of the series is searched for, even if the episode itself is monitored.
Season	Switch on each season row	Convenience: turns every episode of the season on or off together.
Episode	Switch on each episode row	Whether this one episode is wanted.

An episode is wanted only when both the series and the episode are monitored. The Wanted page, the Calendar and the automatic searches all follow this rule. Specials (season 0) are never monitored automatically; switch them on yourself if you want them.

For a movie there is a single Monitored switch.

Monitor options (series)

The Monitor field in the add form decides the starting state of the episodes:

Option	What it monitors
All episodes	Every episode except specials.
Future episodes	Episodes that have not aired yet (and episodes with no air date).
Missing episodes	Episodes with no file on disk.
Existing episodes	Episodes that already have a file.
First season	Only season 1 (the lowest season number).
Latest season	Only the newest season.
Pilot episode	Only episode 1 of the first season.
None	Nothing. The series is added unmonitored.

Monitor new seasons

In the series’ Edit dialog, Monitor new seasons decides what happens when TMDB later lists a new season: All new seasons (the default for every option except None) or None. New episodes of a season you already monitor inherit that season’s setting.

Series types

Type	Use it for	What changes
Standard	Normal shows named S01E02.	Standard episode naming and matching.
Daily	Talk shows and news that air every day and are named by date.	Releases are matched by air date, and the daily naming format is used.
Anime	Anime with absolute episode numbers.	Absolute numbering is used when matching, and the anime naming format is used.

Naming formats live in Settings > Media Management; see Media management.

Details pages

Click a poster or row to open the title.

Series page

The top shows the artwork, network, genres, seasons, runtime and status, the monitor switch, the quality profile, the series type, tags, and facts: Path, Size on disk, Episodes (on disk / total) and Next airing.

Buttons at the top:

Button	What it does
Search monitored	Searches for every monitored, missing episode now.
Interactive search	Lists every release so you can choose. See Interactive search.
Refresh	Re-reads the metadata (episodes, air dates, artwork) from TMDB.
Refresh & scan	Does the above, then re-reads the folder on disk for new or removed files.
Manual import	Imports files by hand for this series.
Edit	Opens the edit dialog (below).
Delete	Opens the delete dialog (below).

Tabs:

Tab	What it shows
Seasons & episodes	Each season with its monitor switch, a progress bar, Search season and Interactive buttons, and a table of episodes (monitor switch, number, title, aired date, status, size, row actions). Click an episode for details, history, decisions and to delete its file.
Files	Every media file with its quality and media info (video, audio, subtitles, from ffprobe). Analyze re-reads a file’s streams. You can delete a file from here.
History	Grabs, imports and failures for this series.
Decisions	Why Arclight accepted or rejected releases. See Interactive search.
Search	Interactive search inline.
Scene mapping	Rules for releases that number the series differently (below).
Subtitles	See Subtitles.
Requests	Who requested this title (see Discover and requests).

Episode status chips tell you at a glance: have it, downloading, missing, upcoming, or unmonitored.

Movie page

The movie page has the same buttons (Search movie, Interactive search, Refresh, Refresh & scan, Manual import, Edit, Delete) and shows the release dates (In cinemas, Digital, Physical), minimum availability, size, quality of the file and, if it belongs to one, its collection. The tabs are Files, History, Decisions, Search, Subtitles and Requests.

Editing a title

Edit opens a dialog:

Field	Applies to	What it does
Monitored	both	Master monitor switch.
Monitor new seasons	series	All new seasons or None.
Quality profile	both	Changing it can make files fall below or above cutoff; see Wanted.
Language profile	both	Subtitle language profile.
Series type	series	Standard, Daily or Anime.
Season folders	series	Whether seasons get their own folder.
Minimum availability	movies	Announced, In cinemas or Released.
Path	both	The folder Arclight records for the title. Changing it only updates where Arclight looks; it does not move files on disk, and two titles cannot share a path.
Tags	both	Labels.
Versions	both	Extra copies (below).

Save with Save changes.

Deleting a title

Delete opens a dialog. By default it only removes the title from Arclight. Two options:

Delete files and folder from disk: also deletes the title’s folder and everything in it. A red warning shows the path. This cannot be undone through Arclight, so double-check it.
Add to import exclusions: import lists and requests will not add this title again.

Multiple versions (1080p and 4K)

By default Arclight keeps one file per episode or movie. With versions you can keep several copies on purpose, each with its own quality profile, for example a 1080p copy for tablets and a 4K copy for the living-room TV.

Open the title and click Edit.
Find Versions and click Add version.
Give each version a tag (for example 1080p and 4K) and pick its Quality profile.
Leave each version on Wanted, or set Not wanted to keep its file but stop searching.
Click Save changes.

Good to know:

Up to 8 versions per title. Tags must be unique (not case sensitive), up to 32 characters, and cannot contain \ / < > : ? * | ".
“Each wanted version is searched and upgraded against its own profile. Files without a version belong to the first one.”
The first time you add versions to a title that already has a file, the existing file stays in the first version.
Saving with no versions goes back to one file per episode or movie.
When a release arrives, Arclight puts it in the version whose profile fits best. In interactive search the Version column shows which slot it would fill.
Version badges appear in the Files tab, in the interactive search table (Version column) and in the Versions column on the Wanted lists.
Where the files go is set in Settings > Media Management > Versions. Version layout is Side by side (all versions in the item folder, with the tag added to the file name, for example Movie (2020) - 4K.mkv) or One folder per version (a subfolder named after the tag). You can also put the Version token in your file format to place the tag yourself. See Media management.
Requests can create a 4K version for you: see Discover and requests.

Collections

Library > Collections groups movies that belong to the same TMDB collection (for example a trilogy). Each card shows how many movies you have (“N of M on disk · K in library”). It needs a TMDB key.

Open a collection to see which movies are in your library and which are not (“Not in library”). Monitor collection (N missing) adds the missing movies as monitored, using the root folder, quality profile and minimum availability you choose, and can Search for each movie right away. It needs a movie root folder under Settings > Media Management; a message tells you if there is none. You can also add a single movie from the collection with its Add button.

Retention

Library > Retention (administrators) is for freeing disk space automatically. Rules look at your library and, once a title has been watched or has gone stale, stage it for unmonitoring or deletion. Nothing disappears without a waiting period during which you can keep it.

Watch history comes from your media servers. In Settings > Media Servers, switch on Retention for each Jellyfin, Emby or Plex server whose watch history should count. See Media servers.

Rules

Click Add rule. A rule has:

Field	Default	What it does
Name	none	Must be unique.
Enabled	on	Turns the rule on or off.
Media type	none	Movies or series. A rule applies to one.
Scope	Whole library	The whole library, items with certain tags, or items under certain root folders.
Conditions	none	One or more, and all must hold. See below.
Action	Unmonitor	Unmonitor (stop searching), Delete files (move the files to the recycle bin and unmonitor, so they are not downloaded again) or Delete from library (remove the title and its folder, optionally adding an import exclusion).
Grace period	7 days	Days between staging a title and applying the action. 0 applies on the sweep that stages it. 0 to 3650.
Keep if requested within	off	Skips titles someone requested in the last N days.
Keep movies that belong to a collection	off	Movies only.
Dry run	on	“Stage and report, never apply on its own.”

Conditions you can combine:

Condition	Default	Meaning
Watched by every user	none	Everyone with an enabled account on the media server watched it.
Watched by any user	none	At least one user watched it.
Watched by these users	none	Every listed user watched it (matched by name).
Added more than N days ago	90	Time since it was added to the library.
Not watched in N days	180	Nobody played it in this time, and it was added longer ago than that.
Larger than	50 GB	The files take more space than this.

A series counts as watched when every episode on the server is played.

Because Dry run starts on, a new rule only reports. Turn it off when you trust the results.

Sweeping and candidates

A job called RetentionSweep runs daily at 03:30. It stages matching titles as Candidates with the reason and waits for the grace period to pass before applying the rule. A summary shows rules, candidates and how much space they would free.

Use Sweep now (dry run) for a preview of what would match, without staging or applying anything.

Each candidate has a status: Waiting, Kept, Applied or Failed (retried on the next sweep). Buttons per row:

Keep: pins the title (“Pinned by an admin”) so it is never applied. Unpin reverses it.
Apply now: applies the action immediately. This ignores the grace period, the pin and dry run. Deleted files go to the recycle bin when one is set under Settings > Media Management.
Remove: drops the candidate. Nothing in the library changes.

Hygiene

Library > Hygiene (administrators) finds files on disk that Arclight does not know about, plus waste.

Tab	What it finds
Orphans	Video files under your root folders that do not belong to any library item.
Duplicates	Several copies of the same episode or movie, or files with identical content.
Empty folders	Folders with nothing in them.

A scan runs weekly (job OrphanScan, Monday 02:00). Click Scan now for an immediate one; the page shows Last scan, and results refresh when it finishes.

For orphans, Map… opens a dialog to pick the movie or series and episodes the file belongs to, and import it (Import mode: copy or move; files already inside the item’s folder are registered where they are). The dialog shows how the filename was parsed (“Parsed as”) and offers a best-match suggestion. Duplicates show Keep for the one to keep and Delete others, or you can delete a single copy. Empty folders can be deleted.

Files go to the recycle bin when one is set. If a library copy is deleted, its media file entry is removed with it.

Health

The Health tab lists library files that are broken or wrong: missing, empty or unreadable files, files ffprobe cannot read, decode errors, truncated files and samples, missing audio or video tracks, the wrong audio language, and album or audiobook structure problems. Fix them one at a time or in bulk: Replace (blocklist the release, delete the file and search again), Re-check, Ignore (until the file changes) or Delete file. The scan runs weekly by default and only re-checks changed files. Each movie, series, album and book page has its own Health tab with Check now. See Library health scan for every check and setting.

Scene mapping

Some releases number a series differently than TMDB does (for example a long anime split into seasons, or a title with another name). On a series page, the Scene mapping tab lets you teach Arclight how to translate. Without it these releases may be rejected or matched to the wrong episode.

Rules are of three kinds:

Kind	Use it when
Season	A scene season (and optionally an episode) maps to a library season and episode, or to an absolute number. You can set an anchor episode; later episodes keep the same offset until the next rule.
Absolute number	A scene absolute number maps to a library episode or absolute number.
Title alias	Release groups use another name for the series. Optionally restrict it to a scene season and set which library season those releases land in.

Click Add rule, fill in the fields (hints appear under each), and save. You can add a Comment. Rules that come from the community feed are labeled Read-only and cannot be edited; your own are labeled Manual. The feed is synced daily (job SceneMappingSync, 05:23).

After changing rules, Apply to existing files matches the series’ existing files again under the current rules. Files that now map to other episodes are re-linked (the files themselves are not touched) and the folder is rescanned. A summary shows files checked, re-linked, unchanged and skipped. Rescan only re-reads the folder.

Import existing music and audiobooks

If you already have a music or audiobook collection on disk, bring it in from Library > Music or Library > Audiobooks with Import existing (administrators; the feature must be turned on).

Pick the Root folder. Optionally pick a Folder inside it to scan only part of it. Click Scan. Large collections take a while; a progress bar shows how far it got.
Review the list. Each audiobook folder (or album folder) is one row, with its files, what Arclight read from the folder names and tags, the proposed match and a confidence. Folders already in the library are left out.
Click Change on a row to pick another match or search for one. A search accepts a title and author, an Audible ASIN or a MusicBrainz id.
Choose the Quality profile for any authors or artists the import adds, and Keep in place (the default: files stay where they are, with their names) or Move and rename (your naming settings apply).
Click Import. Each row then shows Imported or why it failed. You can fix the match and import a failed row again.

What the import does:

It adds the author or artist when they are not in the library yet, with only the imported books or albums monitored. The rest of their catalogue is listed but not wanted, and nothing is searched.
It understands the common layouts: Author/Book, Author/Series/01 - Book, Author - Title, a single .m4b or .m4a file, and books split over many .mp3 files or CD 1 / Part 2 / Disc 02 folders. For music it understands Artist/Album (Year) and Artist - Album with disc folders.
Tags win over folder names. An ASIN tag (or [ASIN] in the path) or MusicBrainz ids in the tags give an exact match. Otherwise it searches by title and author or artist.
Problems that would block a download, such as a total length that differs from the catalogue’s, are shown as warnings here and do not stop the import.

Scans are kept until Arclight restarts.

Wanted - what is missing and how it is searched
Interactive search - pick a release yourself
Quality profiles - what “good enough” means
Media management - naming, root folders, recycle bin and versions layout
Library health scan - broken, truncated and wrong files, and how to fix them
Tags and tag rules - manage tags and tag items automatically by genre, resolution, requester and more
Subtitles
Discover and requests
Calendar
Glossary

Add another language (audio or subtitles)

Use Add additional… to add a language to a title without losing what it already has. It is on a movie’s and a series’ details page, on each season and episode row, and in the Library bulk bar (select several titles first). The dialog has two tabs, Audio language and Subtitle language. Before you confirm, it shows a preview per title: which languages its files have now and what will happen. Nothing is saved until you press Confirm. The details page shows the title’s audio and subtitle languages as chips; languages you added are marked, and you can remove one there with its ×.

Subtitle language. Pick one or more languages, each with its forced and hearing-impaired setting (the same choices as a language profile). The languages are added to that title only; the shared language profile is not changed, so other titles using it are not affected. Existing subtitles stay. With Search now on, Arclight searches the subtitle providers straight away; each title then reads found, not found yet (no provider answered for it; Arclight keeps looking on the normal subtitle schedule) or already has it (the title really has that language). If you tick Generate with Whisper if no provider has it and a Whisper provider is set up under Settings -> Subtitles (it does not have to be enabled), languages no provider has are generated from the audio. That is slow, so it can still be running after the dialog closes. A language added this way is wanted even when the title’s language profile already counts as complete, and titles without a language profile get subtitles for just the added languages.

Audio language. Pick one language. If a title’s files already have it (from media analysis), the preview says so and nothing is searched. Otherwise choose how to get it:

Find a release that has both. Arclight looks for a multi-audio release that carries the new language plus every language the current file has, at the current quality or better (judged by the title’s quality profile). The current file is replaced only after the new one has imported, and it goes to the recycle bin if you use one. The requirement is saved, so later upgrades also have to keep that language. Releases without it are rejected with “Missing required audio language”, which you can see under the title’s Decisions tab.
Add it as a separate version. Arclight adds a version slot named after the language (for example “Spanish”, or a name you type) that needs that audio, keeps the current file as the “Standard” version, and searches for the new one. Versions belong to the whole series, so on a season or episode this applies to every episode.

Arclight never merges audio tracks from different releases into one file. Two releases rarely line up exactly (different cuts, intros, frame rates or lengths), so a borrowed track drifts out of sync. That is why it replaces the whole file or keeps a separate copy instead.

Files whose audio has not been analysed yet (press Analyze in a title’s Files tab, or run AnalyzeMedia under System -> Tasks) count as not having the language. Searches started from the dialog run as an AdditionalLanguageSearch task under System -> Tasks; anything grabbed goes through the normal queue and shows in Activity. Each request and its outcome appear in the title’s History as “Additional language”.