Plex Meta Manager uses a YAML configuration file; this file contains settings that determine how Plex Meta Manager behaves, and the required connection details needed to connect to Plex Media Server, Radarr, Sonarr, and other third-party services via API.
By default, and unless otherwise stated, Plex Meta Manager looks for the configuration file within `/config/config.yml`
A template Configuration File can be found in the [GitHub Repo](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager/blob/master/config/config.yml.template).
This table outlines the third-party services that Plex Meta Manager can make use of. Each service has specific requirements for setup that can be found by clicking the links within the table.
**Expand the above to see the full config.yml file before continuing.**
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## Library Mappings (`libraries:`)
`libraries:` is used to tell PMM that the following code relates to Plex libraries. `libraries:` should only be seen once within the configuration file.
In this specific example there are four Plex libraries that are being connected to: `Movies - 4K`, `TV Shows`, `Animé` and `Music`. These names **must** match the name of the library as it appears within Plex, including any special characters such as the é within `Animé`.
Using `Movies - 4K:` as an example, `metadata_path:` instructs PMM that the next piece of code is where to look for the [Metadata Files](../../metadata/metadata) which will be covered in the next section.
As can be seen in the original config.yml example, there are three metadata_paths being pointed to for the TV Shows library:
```yaml
TV Shows:
metadata_path:
- file: config/TVShows.yml
- folder: config/TV Shows/
- git: meisnate12/ShowCharts
```
These path types are outlined as follows:
*`- file:` refers to a YAML file which is located within the system that PMM is being run from.
*`- folder:` refers to a directory containing YAML files which is located within the system that PMM is being run from.
*`- git:` refers to a YAML file which is hosted on the [GitHub Configs Repo](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Configs) unless the user has specified a custom repository within the settings section of the config.yml file.
Within the above example, PMM will:
* First, look within the root of the PMM directory (also known as `config/`) for a metadata file named `Movies.yml`. If this file does not exist, PMM will skip the entry and move to the next one in the list.
* Then, look within the root of the PMM directory (also known as `config/`) for a directory called `TV Shows`, and then load any metadata/YAML files within that directory.
* Finally, look at the [meisnate12 folder](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Configs/tree/master/meisnate12) within the GitHub Configs Repo for a file called `MovieCharts.yml` which it finds [here](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Configs/blob/master/meisnate12/MovieCharts.yml).
It should be noted that whilst the user should be able to edit any metadata files which are `- file:` or `- folder:` based, they have little to no control over `- git:` metadata files **unless a copy of the YAML file is downloaded and ran locally**. In the above example, if the user downloaded the [MovieCharts.yml file](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Configs/blob/master/meisnate12/MovieCharts.yml) from the [GitHub Configs Repo](https://github.com/meisnate12/Plex-Meta-Manager-Configs) and placed it in the root directory of PMM (`config/`), then the metadata_path mapping would be updated to reflect this as follows:
```yaml
Movies - 4K:
metadata_path:
- file: config/Movies.yml
- file: config/MovieCharts.yml <------HERE
```
## Playlists (`playlist_files:` mappings)
Playlists can be seen as an extension of Libraries in that they are both handled very similarly within PMM:
```yaml
playlist_files:
- file: config/playlists.yml
- git: meisnate12/Playlists
```
As with `libraries:`, YAML files are defined to create the Playlists. It should be noted that whilst in `libraries:` when working with `playlist_files:` you call out the libraries being connected to within the Metadata/YAML file as Playlists can combine media from multiple libraries. You can view an example playlists.yml file as follows:
As can be seen in the above examples, multiple libraries are being used to combine different types of media (movies and tv shows in this case) into one playlist.
