Using Plex Meta Manager you can create Smart Collections in two different ways.

Smart Label

A Smart Label Collection is a smart collection that grabs every item with a specific label generated by the program. That label is added to all the items the Collection Builders find instead of being added to a normal collection.

You can add smart_label giving it one of the sorts from the Movies/Shows column of the Sorts Table below along with any other builder to make that collection a Smart Label Collection.

This is extremely useful because smart collections don't follow normal show/hide rules and can eliminate the need to have Plex Collectionless when used correctly. To fix the issue described in Plex Collectionless you would make Marvel Cinematic Universe a Smart Label Collection and all other Marvel collection just normal collections and they will show/hide all the movie properly.

To have the Smart Label Collections to eliminate Plex Collectionless you have to go all in on using them. A good rule of thumb to make sure this works correctly is that every item in your library should have a max of one non-smart collection.

Reach out on the Plex Meta Manager Discord or in the Github Discussions for help if you're having any issues getting this to work properly.

Smart Filter

Uses Plex's Advance Filters to create a smart collection based on the filter parameters provided.

Any Advance Filter made using the Plex UI should be able to be recreated using smart_filter. If you're having trouble getting smart_filter to work correctly, build the collection you want inside of Plex's Advance Filters and take a screenshot of the parameters in the Plex UI and post it in either the Discussions or on Discord and I'll do my best to help you.

like Plex's Advance Filters you have to start each filter with either any or all as a base. You can only have one base attribute and all filter attributes must be under the base.

Inside the base attribute you can use any filter below or nest more any or all. You can have as many nested any or all next to each other as you want. If using multiple any or all you will have to do so in the form of a list.

There are a couple other attributes you can have at the top level only along with the base attribute are:

Special Attributes

Special Option	Attribute	Description	Default
Type	`type`	The Type of items inside this collection Options: `movies`, `shows`, `seasons`, and `episodes`	`movies` for Movies Libraries and `shows` for Show Libraries
Limit	`limit`	The max number of item for the filter	all
Sort By	`sort_by`	This will control how the filter is sorted in your library. You can use any sort options for your search type in the Sorts Table	`random`
Validate	`validate`	Determines if a collection will fail on a validation error Options: `true` or `false`	`true`

Sort Options

Sort Option	Description	Movies	Shows	Seasons	Episodes
`title.asc`/`title.desc`	Sort by Title	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
`season.asc`/`season.desc`	Sort by Season	❌	❌	✔️	❌
`show.asc`/`show.desc`	Sort by Show	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
`year.asc`/`year.desc`	Sort by Year	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
`release.asc`/ `release.desc`	Sort by Release Date (Originally Available)	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
`critic_rating.asc`/ `critic_rating.desc`	Sort by Critic Rating	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
`audience_rating.asc`/ `audience_rating.desc`	Sort by Audience Rating	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
`user_rating.asc`/ `user_rating.desc`	Sort by User Rating	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
`content_rating.asc`/ `content_rating.desc`	Sort by Content Rating	✔️	✔️	❌	❌
`duration.asc`/`duration.desc`	Sort by Duration	✔️	❌	❌	✔️
`plays.asc`/`plays.desc`	Sort by Number of Plays	✔️	❌	❌	✔️
`added.asc`/`added.desc`	Sort by Date Added	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
`episode_added.asc`/ `episode_added.desc`	Sort by Last Episode Date Added	❌	✔️	❌	❌
`random`	Sort by Random	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️

Filters

There are three fields per filter option when using Plex's Advance Filters in the Web UI. The first is the Attribute (what attribute you wish to filter), the second is the Modifier (which modifier to use), and the third is the Term (actual term to filter).

String Filters

String filters can be used with either no modifier or with .not, .is, .isnot, .begins, or .ends.

String filter can take multiple values only as a list.

String Modifiers

String Modifier	Description	Plex Web UI Display
No Modifier	Matches every item where the attribute contains the given string	`contains`
`.not`	Matches every item where the attribute does not contain the given string	`does not contain`
`.is`	Matches every item where the attribute exactly matches the given string	`is`
`.isnot`	Matches every item where the attribute does not exactly match the given string	`is not`
`.begins`	Matches every item where the attribute begins with the given string	`begins with`
`.ends`	Matches every item where the attribute ends with the given string	`ends with`

String Attributes

String Filter	Description	Movie Libraries	Show Libraries
`title`	Uses the title attribute to match	✔️	✔️
`episode_title`	Uses the title attribute of the show's episodes to match	❌	✔️
`studio`	Uses the studio attribute to match	✔️	✔️

Tag Filters

Tag filters can be used with either no modifier or with .not except for decade and resolution which can only be used with no modifier.

Tag filter can take multiple values as a list or a comma-separated string.

Tag Modifiers

Tag Modifier	Description	Plex Web UI Display
No Modifier	Matches every item where the attribute matches the given string	`is`
`.not`	Matches every item where the attribute does not match the given string	`is not`

Tag Attributes

Tag Filter	Description	Movie Libraries	Show Libraries
`actor`	Uses the actor tags to match	✔️	✔️
`audio_language`	Uses the audio language tags to match	✔️	✔️
`collection`	Uses the collection tags to match	✔️	✔️
`content_rating`	Uses the content rating tags to match	✔️	✔️
`country`	Uses the country tags to match	✔️	❌
`decade`	Uses the year tag to match the decade	✔️	❌
`director`	Uses the director tags to match	✔️	❌
`genre`	Uses the genre tags to match	✔️	✔️
`label`	Uses the label tags to match	✔️	✔️
`network`	Uses the network tags to match Only works with the New Plex TV Agent	❌	✔️
`producer`	Uses the actor tags to match	✔️	❌
`resolution`	Uses the resolution tags to match	✔️	✔️
`subtitle_language`	Uses the subtitle language tags to match	✔️	✔️
`writer`	Uses the writer tags to match	✔️	❌
`year`	Uses the year tag to match	✔️	✔️
`episode_year`	Uses the year tag to match	❌	✔️

Date Filters

Date filters can be used with either no modifier or with .not, .before, or .after.

No date filter can take multiple values.

Date Modifiers

Date Modifier	Description	Format	Plex Web UI Display
No Modifier	Matches every item where the date attribute is in the last X days	Format: number of days e.g. `30`	`is in the last`
`.not`	Matches every item where the date attribute is not in the last X days	Format: number of days e.g. `30`	`is not in the last`
`.before`	Matches every item where the date attribute is before the given date	Format: MM/DD/YYYY e.g. `01/01/2000`	`is before`
`.after`	Matches every item where the date attribute is after the given date	Format: MM/DD/YYYY e.g. `01/01/2000`	`is after`

Date Attributes

Date Filter	Description	Movie Libraries	Show Libraries
`added`	Uses the date added attribute to match	✔️	✔️
`episode_added`	Uses the date added attribute of the show's episodes to match	❌	✔️
`release`	Uses the release date attribute (originally available) to match	✔️	✔️
`episode_air_date`	Uses the air date attribute (originally available) of the show's episodes to match	❌	✔️
`last_played`	Uses the date last played attribute to match	✔️	✔️
`episode_last_played`	Uses the date last played attribute of the show's episodes to match	❌	✔️

Number Filters

Number filters must use .gt, .gte, .lt, or .lte as a modifier.

No number filter can take multiple values.

Number Modifiers

Number Modifier	Description	Format	Plex Web UI Display
`.gt`	Matches every item where the number attribute is greater then the given number	Format: number e.g. `30`, `1995`, or `7.5`	`is greater than`
`.gte`	Matches every item where the number attribute is greater then or equal to the given number	Format: number e.g. `30`, `1995`, or `7.5`	N/A
`.lt`	Matches every item where the number attribute is less then the given number	Format: number e.g. `30`, `1995`, or `7.5`	`is less than`
`.lte`	Matches every item where the number attribute is less then or equal to the given number	Format: number e.g. `30`, `1995`, or `7.5`	N/A

Number Attributes

Number Filter	Description	Restrictions	Movie Libraries	Show Libraries
`duration`	Uses the duration attribute to match using minutes	minimum: `1`	✔️	❌
`plays`	Uses the plays attribute to match	minimum: `1`	✔️	✔️
`episode_plays`	Uses the plays attribute of the show's episodes to match	minimum: `1`	❌	✔️
`critic_rating`	Uses the critic rating attribute to match	`0.0` - `10.0`	✔️	✔️
`audience_rating`	Uses the audience rating attribute to match	`0.0` - `10.0`	✔️	✔️
`user_rating`	Uses the user rating attribute to match	`0.0` - `10.0`	✔️	✔️
`episode_user_rating`	Uses the user rating attribute of the show's episodes to match	`0.0` - `10.0`	❌	✔️
`year`	Uses the year attribute to match	`1800` - `Current Year`	✔️	✔️
`episode_year`	Uses the year attribute of the show's episodes to match	`1800` - `Current Year`	❌	✔️

Boolean Filters

Boolean Filters take no modifier and can only be either true or false.

Boolean Attributes

Boolean Filter	Description	Movie Libraries	Show Libraries
`hdr`	Is HDR	✔️	✔️
`unmatched`	Is Unmatched	✔️	❌
`duplicate`	Is Duplicate	✔️	❌
`unplayed`	Is Unplayed	✔️	❌
`progress`	Is In Progress	✔️	❌
`trash`	Is Trashed	✔️	✔️
`unplayed_episodes`	Has Unplayed Episodes	❌	✔️
`episode_unplayed`	Has Episodes Unplayed	❌	✔️
`episode_duplicate`	Has Duplicate Episodes	❌	✔️
`episode_progress`	Has Episode Progress	❌	✔️
`episode_unmatched`	Has Episodes Unmatched	❌	✔️

Smart Filter Examples

A few examples are listed below:

collections:
  Documentaries:
    smart_filter:
      all:
        genre: Documentary

collections:
  Dave Chappelle Comedy:
    smart_filter:
      all:
        actor: Dave Chappelle
        genre: Comedy

collections:
  Top Action Movies:
    smart_filter:
      all:
        genre: Action
      sort_by: audience_rating.desc
      limit: 20

collections:
  90s Movies:
    smart_filter:
      any:
        year:
          - 1990
          - 1991
          - 1992
          - 1993
          - 1994
          - 1995
          - 1996
          - 1997
          - 1998
          - 1999

collections:
  90s Movies:
    smart_filter:
      any:
        decade: 1990

collections:
  Best 2010+ Movies:
    smart_filter:
      all:
        year.gte: 2010
      sort_by: audience_rating.desc
      limit: 20

If you specify TMDb Person ID's using the Collection Detail tmdb_person and then tell either actor, director, producer, or writer to add tmdb, the script will translate the TMDb Person IDs into their names and run the search on those names.

collections:
  Robin Williams:
    smart_filter:
      all:
        actor: tmdb
    tmdb_person: 2157

collections:
  Steven Spielberg:
    smart_filter:
      all:
        director: tmdb
    tmdb_person: https://www.themoviedb.org/person/488-steven-spielberg

collections:
  Quentin Tarantino:
    smart_filter:
      any:
        actor: tmdb
        director: tmdb
        producer: tmdb
        writer: tmdb
    tmdb_person: 138

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Smart-Builders.md

Smart-Builders.md

Smart Label

Smart Filter

Special Attributes

Sort Options

Filters

String Filters

String Modifiers

String Attributes

Tag Filters

Tag Modifiers

Tag Attributes

Date Filters

Date Modifiers

Date Attributes

Number Filters

Number Modifiers

Number Attributes

Boolean Filters

Boolean Attributes

Smart Filter Examples

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Smart-Builders.md

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Smart Label

Smart Filter

Special Attributes

Sort Options

Filters

String Filters

String Modifiers

String Attributes

Tag Filters

Tag Modifiers

Tag Attributes

Date Filters

Date Modifiers

Date Attributes

Number Filters

Number Modifiers

Number Attributes

Boolean Filters

Boolean Attributes

Smart Filter Examples