🪄 Free Tool Renames All Your Messy Movie Files in One Drag

Tools & Scripts
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:clapper_board: Drag Your Messy Movie Folder In — Out Comes a Clean Library

Free Windows app. Turns UnTouch.The.Kerala.Story.2.2026.1080p.WEB-HDRip.Hindi.DDP5.1... into The Kerala Story 2 (2026)/. One drag.

Every downloaded movie shows up with a filename that looks like a keyboard fell on it. CineLibrary Essentials finds the real title and year buried inside the mess and hands you a clean folder, ready for Plex, Kodi, or Jellyfin (the apps that turn your hard drive into a personal Netflix).

Three clicks. No command line. No coding. If you’ve ever dragged a file onto a window, you’re already qualified.

📂 What It Actually Does

Drop a messy Downloads/Movies folder onto the window. The app reads each filename, quietly throws away the garbage — codec tags (x265, HEVC — these describe video quality, not the actual movie), audio tags (DDP5.1, Atmos), release-group nicknames, tracker URLs — and keeps the real title + year.

Before After
UnTouch.The.Kerala.Story.2.2026.1080p.WEB-HDRip.Hindi.DDP5.1.x264-india4Movies.mkv The Kerala Story 2 (2026)/The Kerala Story 2 (2026).mkv

Preview shows the original in grey with removed bits crossed out in red. Don’t like a row? Untick it. Nothing moves until you say go. Subtitles (.srt, .sub) tag along with their movie automatically. Duplicates, invalid characters Windows hates, missing years, and path-too-long warnings all get flagged before anything breaks.

:light_bulb: One-click TMDb lookup per row. TMDb = a free movie info database (IMDb’s open-source cousin). Hit the :magnifying_glass_tilted_left: button, pick the right match from a dropdown, the app pulls poster + plot + year from that exact entry.

🚀 How to Start (3 Minutes)

Step 1 — Grab the installer from the repo: github.com/aungkokomm/CineLibraryEssentials → click Releases on the right side → download the single .exe (~58 MB, no admin rights needed, installs just for you).

Step 2 — Open the app. Drag your Movies folder onto the window.

Step 3 — Look at the preview. Hit Rename Selected to clean filenames in place, or Run File to Folder to move each file into its own tidy Title (Year)/ folder.

:light_bulb: Works on Windows 10 (2018 or newer) and Windows 11, 64-bit. After Essentials does its bit, the folders are shaped exactly the way Plex / Kodi / Jellyfin / MediaElch (the heavier “fetch every poster + cast photo + trailer” scraper) want them — no fighting the apps later.

:high_voltage: Quick Hits

Want Do
:bullseye: Clean 200 messy movie filenames at once → Drag folder, hit Rename Selected
:television: Get folders Plex/Kodi/Jellyfin-ready → Use Run File to Folder
:artist_palette: Add posters + plot info → Built-in :magnifying_glass_tilted_left: TMDb lookup per row
:shield: Worried about ruining files → Preview shows every change before a single byte moves

Three clicks between Downloads chaos and a library that looks like Netflix.

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I love you :grinning_face:

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Love this !

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Hope you enjoy the app!

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Love you too Mate!

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Any alternative for macos?

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Some Mac users install Windows (via Parallels or VMware) specifically to run CineLibrary Essentials.
Since it’s built with WinUI 3, there’s no native macOS build.
If you prefer staying on macOS, tools like tinyMediaManager or MediaElch are good alternatives.

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CineLibrary Essentials v1.1.0 Major version update is live now! Grab it!

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Is there any similar tool that can rename PDF files of research articles we download from different databases?

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Hi,
Thanks for the great tool!

I have a few suggestions for features that would make it even better:

  1. Support for .strm files: It would be great if the app could recognize and process .strm files.

  2. Option to rename folders only: Add an option to rename only the parent folder while leaving the files inside (mp4, mkv, strm, etc.) untouched.

  • Use case: When a folder contains multiple versions of the same movie, I want to keep them all without having to manually deselect thousands of files.

  1. Metadata language selection: Allow users to choose the language for the fetched metadata.

  2. Folder merging: If a folder is renamed to a name that already exists, the two folders should automatically merge instead of creating an error or a duplicate.

  3. Full TV Show support: Add the ability to recognize and rename TV series (including seasons and episodes). This should include the same features requested for movies:

  • Support for .strm files within show folders.
    rename only the main folder
    *Folder merging
    Metadata language selection:

Thanks again for your work!

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Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions! At the moment, CineLibrary Essentials is focused exclusively on movies that’s the scope I am refining and maintaining.

For TV series management (seasons, episodes, .strm handling, folder renaming, metadata, etc.), we recommend using FileBot, which already does an excellent job in that area.

This way, CineLibrary Essentials stays lean and specialized for movie collections, while FileBot covers the TV show use case without duplication of effort.

  1. Option to rename folders only: that is in the future update list.
  2. Metadata language selection: I will explore to implement that.
  3. Folder merging: I will look at it.

Thanks again for your thoughtful feedback and feature suggestions.
Much appreciated!

Version 1.1.2 is out there with overall user experience improvements please check it out.

Latest Version

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@Omersjjd Plese explore other tools for that specific task, my tool is currently focusing on Movies only.

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What’s new

  • Richer scraped metadata — the .nfo file now includes country, certification (MPAA), tagline, director, writers, studios, trailer URL, collection/set info, IMDb id, and a structured ratings block. Plex, Kodi, Jellyfin, MediaElch and the CineLibrary viewer all read the deeper detail.
  • File-level info in the .nfo — the scraper now probes the actual video file and writes its codec, dimensions, duration, per-track audio language and per-track subtitle language. The library viewer’s detail strip (RUNTIME · RELEASED · COUNTRY · DURATION · CONTAINER · AUDIO · SUBTITLES) is now fully populated.
  • Release date now appears in full — the scraper writes a proper <premiered> date so viewers display “Mar 4, 2015” instead of just the year.
  • Auto-update notifier — when a newer release exists on GitHub, a toast appears on startup with a one-click Download button. Runs silently in the background, checks at most once per 24 hours, never interrupts your work.
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  1. Metadata language selection: Allow users to choose the language for the fetched metadata.
  2. Folder merging: If a folder is renamed to a name that already exists, the two folders should automatically merge instead of creating an error or a duplicate.

These 2 implanting, the rest of list will be soon touched.
Please check for updates within next 30 Minutes.

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TV show support :television:

Full end-to-end handling for TV libraries:

  • Clean episode filenames into the Kodi/Plex standard Show - S01E01 - Episode Title
  • Organize into Show/Season XX/ folders — one folder per season, all episodes together
  • Scrape writes tvshow.nfo + show poster, fanart and cast at the show root, plus a per-episode .nfo and episode thumbnail for every episode
  • Recognizes both proper Show/Season XX/ layouts and flat Show Season 1 Complete/ folders — the show name is read from the episode files, not the folder name

Scrape in your language :globe_with_meridians:

Pick from 16 languages — English, Burmese, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic. TMDb returns titles, plots and posters in your language where available.

A proper Settings page :gear:

A new gear icon opens one place for your output template, default scan options, scrape language, and update preferences.

Rich Movie Details view :magnifying_glass_tilted_right:

Double-tap any scraped movie to open a full, resizable details window — hero fanart, poster, plot, colour-coded director / writer / studio / country / genres / IDs / file info, and a scrollable cast strip with photos. Play, Open Folder and Trailer buttons built in. Press Esc to close.

Edition detection :clapper_board:

Director’s Cut, Extended, IMAX, 4K Remaster, Theatrical, Unrated, Criterion and more are detected automatically and written into the NFO, so Plex/Kodi group multiple cuts of the same movie correctly.

Verify your existing library :white_check_mark:

A new Fill gaps only button sweeps a whole library and scrapes just the folders missing something — NFO, poster, fanart, or actor photos. Complete folders are skipped. Each card shows exactly what’s missing.

One-click updates :bell:

When a new version ships, the update notice can now download and launch the installer for you — no trip to GitHub.

Quality-of-life

  • Movies / TV / Auto mode selector so the app always knows what you’re processing
  • Resizable TMDb search window (searches movies or TV depending on the card)
  • Folder merging in Organize — drop new files into an existing folder without errors or duplicates
  • Smarter subtitle handling — language-tagged subs like .en.forced.srt follow the rename
  • Per-card scrape progress so you can see which one is in flight
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v1.2.1 — TMDb search fix

Fix

TMDb recently changed their servers to always send compressed responses. CineLibrary Essentials wasn’t decompressing them, which caused TMDb searches to suddenly return no results even though everything was configured correctly.

This release makes the app transparently handle compressed responses, so search, scraping, and image downloads all work normally again. No settings to change — just install and go.

Install

Download CineLibraryEssentials_Setup_1.2.1.exe below and run it (or, if you’re on v1.2.0, the in-app update prompt will offer it automatically). Install on top of your existing version — your settings are kept.