Movie Explorer

Changing movie posters

Follow these steps if you want to alter the thumbnail of a movie or TV show episode:

• Select the movie in the Movies view or the episode in the TV Shows view.
• Open the Gallery by pressing the G key on your keyboard.
• Select the poster image you want to use as a thumbnail.
• Right-click on the enlarged image.
• Choose Use Image as Thumbnail from the context menu.

Tip: to retrieve the current available images from TMDb, right-click on an image in the Gallery and choose Reload Images from the context menu.

Adding movie posters

Movie Explorer uses TMDb as metadata source for movies and TV shows. TMDb (The Movie Database) is a community built movie and TV database.

If you want to add missing poster art to Movie Explorer, you have to do that first in TMDb, and then refresh the related data in Movie Explorer.
Please follow these steps:

• Open your browser and go to TMDb.
• You must be logged in to add artwork. If you don't have an account, then you can sign up for free.
• Search and open the movie or TV show in question.
• Select Media > Posters in the menu above the info.
• Click on the + button at the right side of the Posters header located on the left side of the page.
• Follow the instruction to add a poster file.
• After uploading and saving your posters, it will take some time before they are available via the data source.
• To update the poster of a selected movie, choose Refresh Metadata in the right-click context menu.
• To update artwork of a selected TV show in the TV shows sidebar, choose Refresh Metadata in the right-click context menu.

Shortcut to TMDb

If you contribute a lot to TMDb then it's good to know that there is a shortcut in Movie Explorer to jump from a movie straight to the corresponding page in TMDb:

• Select the movie in Movie view or episode in TV Shows view, that you want to edit in TMDb.
• Press ⌥ Option (Alt) and D on the keyboard.
• The associated data in TMDb will be displayed in your default browser.

Changing disc covers

Follow these steps if you want to change the cover of a disc:

• Select the disc in the Discs view.
• Choose Item > Select Cover in the menu.
• Select an alternative cover in the covers overview dialog.
• Confirm you choice by clicking on the Use Selected Cover button.

Adding disc covers

Movie Explorer uses TMDb as metadata source for movies and TV shows. TMDb (The Movie Database) is a community built movie and TV database.

If you want to add missing covers to Movie Explorer, you have to do that first in TMDb, and then refresh the related data in Movie Explorer. In TMDb, covers are being registered as posters. Please follow these steps to a new poster:

• Open your browser and go to TMDb.
• You must be logged in to add artwork. If you don't have an account, then you can sign up for free.
• Search and open the movie or TV show in question.
• Select Media > Posters in the menu above the info.
• Click on the + button at the right side of the Posters header located on the left side of the page.
• Follow the instruction to add a poster file.
• After uploading and saving your posters, it will take some time before they are available via the data source.
• To update the cover of a selected disc, follow the steps described above for Changing disc covers.

Shortcut to TMDb

If you contribute a lot to TMDb then it's good to know that there is a shortcut in Movie Explorer to jump from a movie or show straight to the corresponding page in TMDb:

• Select the movie or show in Discs view that you want to edit in TMDb.
• Press ⌥ Option (Alt) and D on the keyboard.
• The associated data in TMDb will be displayed in your default browser.

Absolutely! If you have purchased the TV Shows Add-on in an earlier version of News Explorer, any feature of that add-on will continue to work in Movie Explorer 2.0 and all related updates. This means that the following TV Shows Add-on features, which are now part of the Pro upgrade, remain working:

• TV show file indexing - Your TV show files are automatically detected
• TV Shows view - Special view to easily manage TV shows, seasons and episodes
• Watch history support - Mark movies and episodes as watched or unwatched
• History filter - Filter your movies and episodes on watched, unwatched, watchlisted or paused
• Watchlist - Add items to a watchlist and inspect them using the Watchlist sidebar filter
• Trakt.tv sync - Sync watch history and watchlist with trakt.tv

As a TV Shows Add-on customer, you get a discount on the Movie Explorer Pro subscription.

The standalone Movie Explorer Pro app doesn't use the same database as the standard app. But you can easily migrate your old data by following these simple steps:

• Make a backup of the database in the old Movie Explorer app, by using menu File > Backup Database.
• In Movie Explorer Pro, restore this backup by using menu File > Restore Database.

If you see an error message when playing a movie in the app, it may be necessary to restore the file access security info that’s being stored in the database. To do this, select a location in the sidebar, right-click and choose Restore… from the context menu. Repeat this for each location.

If the path to your movie files changes, for example after restoring a database backup or after copying them to a new hard disk, then you need to perform the following procedure:

1. Select the Location in the sidebar of Movie Explorer that should be fixed.
2. Click on the right mouse button.
3. Choose Restore... from the context menu.
4. Follow the instructions.

This will restore the sandbox security string in the Movie Explorer database for the selected movie source location without changing the rest of the database content.

In case of a database restore, you have to repeat the procedure above for each location.

The Mac App Store will automatically offer an older compatible version of Movie Explorer when you don't run the latest macOS version.

However, there is one major limitation of the Mac App Store that must be taken into account: Your initial download or purchase must be performed on a Mac that's capable of running the latest version of the app. To bypass this, you can use another compatible Mac (could be from somebody else), login in the Mac App Store with your Apple ID and download Movie Explorer. Once done, the download on your own Mac should work.

Movie Explorer uses TMDb as metadata source for movies and TV shows. TMDb (The Movie Database) is a community built movie and TV database.

If you want to add or edit metadata in Movie Explorer, you have to do that first in TMDb, and then refresh the related data in Movie Explorer. Before doing so, make sure that the movie or TV show is indeed missing or incorrect by using the 'Search matching movie' context menu item in the Files view.

Missing data

Missing cinema movie and TV show titles should be added to the source used by Movie Explorer, which is TMDb. Just browse to TMDb and click on the '+ Add New Movie' menu item on top of the page. You must be logged in to add new data. If you don't have a TMDb account, then you can sign up for free. Follow the instructions to add a new title and save your addition. Then perform a rescan of the source location in Movie Explorer. It may take some time before the newly added title is available. Before adding new data to in TMDb, perform a search for your movie or TV Show in TMDb, to make sure you are not adding duplicate data.

Incorrect data

Incorrect cinema movie and TV show data should also be adjusted in TMDb. Please follow these steps:

• Open your browser and go to TMDb.
• You must be logged in to edit any data. If you don't have an account, then you can sign up for free.
• Search for the movie or TV show that you want to edit.
• Edit the data. For more information how to to this, please read the Contribution Bible.
• After saving your changes, it will take some time before they are available via the data source.
• To update a movie in your catalog with the latest TMDb data:
  • Select the movie in the Movies view.
  • Right-click with your mouse or trackpad.
  • Choose 'Refresh Metadata' from the context menu.
• To update anything related to a TV show in your catalog:
  • Select the show in the TV show treeview in the TV Shows view.
  • Right-click with your mouse or trackpad.
  • Choose 'Refresh Metadata' from the context menu.

Artwork

You can also add posters and other artwork to movies and TV shows in TMDb. This works similar to correcting movie and TV show data as discussed above. To update the local image cache for a selected movie or TV show, open the Gallery and choose 'Reload Images' in the right-click context menu.

Shortcut to TMDb

If you contribute a lot to TMDb then it's good to know that there is a shortcut in Movie Explorer to jump from a movie straight to the corresponding page in TMDb:

• Select the movie or episode you want to edit in TMDb
• Press ⌥ Option (Alt) and D on the keyboard.
• The associated data in TMDb will be displayed in your default browser.

Perform these steps to get an overview of all unmatched media files:

1. Open the Files view in Movie Explorer. This is the last tab bar icon on the toolbar.
2. Click on the Title column header. This will adjust the sorting.
3. Click again on the Title column header until the files without a title are shown on top.

To match these files, select a file and open the Match dialog by pressing the M key on your keyboard.

If you scan movie files stored in Dropbox while Smart Sync is enabled, you may notice that these files are automatically downloaded during the scan operation. To prevent this, simply quit Dropbox before you start a new scan in Movie Explorer. This only works when file matching is based on the file name, which is the default setting.

Follow these steps to close Dropbox:

1. Click on the Dropbox icon in the status bar.
2. Click on the account icon in the popup view.
3. Choose Quit in the popup menu.

Check in Finder if the sync status icons at the right side of the filenames disappears.

Don't forget to restart Dropbox from the Applications folder after the scanning in Movie Explorer Pro is finished.

Follow these step to delete duplicate files in Movie Explorer:

1. In the sidebar, select 'Duplicate Files'.
2. Open the Files view.
3. Click on the Title column header to group all duplicate files.
4. For each set of duplicate files, select the file you want to remove.
5. Choose 'Move to Trash' from the right-click context menu or press ⌘ Command + ⌫ Backspace on your keyboard.

Duplicate files shown in filter Duplicate Files and in the Media Inspector, that don’t exist as duplicate files on your harddrives, may be caused by:

• Adding an already indexed file source (location) as a new file location. A warning will be shown, but you can ignore this.
• Or adding a subfolder of an already indexed file source, as new location. No warning will be shown.
• Moving files from one physical file location to another, without refreshing the related source location in Movie Explorer. To refresh a location in Movie Explorer, select it in the sidebar, and choose Location > Refresh in the menu.

To delete a duplicate location, select the location in the sidebar, and choose Location > Delete in the menu.

Try one of the following tips, from easy to complicated, to resolve issues during purchasing In-app products:

• Restart your Mac and retry the purchase.
• Make sure that you're actually able to buy stuff in the Mac App Store. If you're using a brand new Mac for example you must enter some additional credit card info to start your first purchase on that machine.
• Open the Mac App Store and do this:
1. Choose Store > Log out from the menu.
2. Login again via the same menu.
3. Retry the purchase.
• Reinstall the app by following these steps:
1. Open the Applications folder.
2. Move the app to the Recycle bin.
3. Empty the Recycle bin.
4. Restart your Mac.
5. Re-install the app from the Mac App Store.
6. Retry the purchase.

The data of Movie Explorer is saved in:

~/Library/Containers/betamagic.Movie-Explorer/Data/Library/Application Support/betamagic.Movie_Explorer

Just paste this in the 'Go to folder...' dialog of the Finder (under the Go menu).

The images are cached in:

~/Library/Containers/betamagic.Movie-Explorer/Data/Library/Caches/betamagic.Movie-Explorer

The data of Movie Explorer Pro of the Mac App Store edition is saved in:

~/Library/Containers/betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro/Data/Library/Application Support/betamagic.Movie_Explorer

Just paste this in the 'Go to folder...' dialog of the Finder (under the Go menu).

The images are cached in:

~/Library/Containers/betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro/Data/Library/Caches/betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro

The data of Movie Explorer Pro of the Setapp edition is saved in:

~/Library/Containers/com.betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro-setapp/Data/Library/Application Support/betamagic.Movie_Explorer

Just paste this in the 'Go to folder...' dialog of the Finder (under the Go menu).

The images are cached in:

~/Library/Containers/com.betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro-setapp/Data/Library/Caches/com.betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro-setapp

Moving the database to another location is not supported by the app.

To remove all Movie Explorer data from your Mac, you'll need to delete the local Sandbox container folder:

• Start Finder, choose Go > Go to folder from the menu and copy & paste this string:
  ~/Library/Containers/betamagic.Movie-Explorer
  
• Choose Go
• Move folder Movie Explorer (or on older macOS versions, folder betamagic.Movie-Explorer) to the Bin.
• Empty the Trash can.

To remove all Movie Explorer Pro data from your Mac, using the Mac App Store edition, you'll need to delete the local Sandbox container folder:

• Start Finder, choose Go > Go to folder from the menu and copy & paste this string:
  ~/Library/Containers/betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro
  
• Choose Go
• Move folder Movie Explorer Pro (or on older macOS versions, folder betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro) to the Bin.
• Empty the Trash can.

To remove all Movie Explorer Pro data from your Mac, using the Setapp edition, you'll need to delete the local Sandbox container folder:

• Start Finder, choose Go > Go to folder from the menu and copy & paste this string:
  ~/Library/Containers/com.betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro-setapp
  
• Choose Go
• Move folder Movie Explorer Pro (or on older macOS versions, folder com.betamagic.Movie-Explorer-Pro-setapp) to the Bin.
• Empty the Trash can.

Tip: If you only see a folder ‘Data’ in Finder, then you can navigate one level higher in the file hierarchy by using key combination Command ⌘ + ↑.