Having multimedia collections on our computers is slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past.
Nevertheless, if you’re one of those nostalgia-driven users who like having movies and TV shows stored locally on your computers and you’re not a fan of streaming services, then you might want to check out tinyMediaManager, or tinyMM, for short.
As its name clearly states, it’s a “tiny” media/multimedia manager application that is all about helping you manage and organize your media library. This includes movies, TV series, TV shows, documentaries, and other types of media.
The app also provides various ways to extract information/metadata from third-party sources, and can even take on the role of a surprisingly nice video player. You can also create, view, edit the metadata, artwork, and file structure of your media files (used by Kodi/XBMC, Plex, MediaPortal, Emby, Jellyfin, and other similar media center software).
More geeky information about tinyMM
Since TinyMediaManager is built using Java and Swing, it should work without problems on most Linux distributions, as well as on Windows and macOS.
The metadata scrapers used to retrieve information are as follows: IMDb, TheMovieDB, TVDb, OFDb, Moviemeter, Trakt, and many more. The art is downloaded from TheMovieDb, TVDb, and FanArt.tv, while the trailers come from TheMovieDb and HD-Trailers.net. The app also boasts a subtitle downloader that provides data from OpenSubtitles.org.
As mentioned before, one of the best aspects of tinyMediaManager is the multitude of tools for organizing media files. You can manually edit any metadata field, you can perform custom filters and sort the files in question, group movies into sets with special artwork common to all movies in it, as well as import TV show collections from various sources, no matter the file organization style.
Getting to grips with tinyMediaManager
tinyMM is by no means a difficult app to use, however, since there are tons of sections and things you can do with the app, it may take a bit of time to get used to its workflow.
Thankfully, the app’s Docs section offers comprehensive information regarding everything a new user might need including a Quick Start Guide, Installation Instructions, Settings, and so forth.
Before we conclude, it’s worth noting that tinyMediaManager comes in two flavors: FREE and PRO. The FREE version is pretty decent and provides users with pretty much all basic tools and features, while the PRO brings a few extra tools, but more importantly unlocks all the available scrapers.
Verdict
If you’re looking for a comprehensive and sustainable way of cataloging and organizing your movie/TV show collection, then tinyMediaManager should definitely be on your shortlist.
