Separators Default Collection Files

Separators are a special form of collections which are used similar to index cards in a library, they help to "split up" collections by identifying categories (such as "Studio Collections" and "Holiday Collections").

These are empty collections which do not contain any movies/shows themselves, but highlight that the collections which follow it are of a certain category.

Below is an example of a separator, which can be seen surrounded by a red square.

Important Note:

Plex does not support creating these empty collections natively through its UI, so they can behave strangely in some cases, primarily related to showing/hiding them in the main library view. As a workaround, you can use a placeholder_ Template Variable to specify a single movie/show to add to these collections so they have one thing in them and will then behave as expected. For example, placeholder_imdb_id: tt0068646 will place The Godfather inside the separator in a movie library.

Separator Files

These are all the files that contain a separator

Collection Name	Default File
Actors Collections	actor
Audio Language Collections	audio_language
Award Collections	separator_award
Based On... Collections	based
Chart Collections	separator_chart
Country Collections	country
Decade Collections	decade
Directors Collections	director
Genre Collections	genre
Network Collections	network
Producers Collections	producer
Ratings Collections	content_rating*
Resolution Collections	resolution*
Seasonal Collections	seasonal
Streaming Collections	streaming
Studio Collections	studio
Subtitle Language Collections	subtitle_language
Universe Collections	universe
Writers Collections	writer
Year Collections	year

Shared Separator Variables

Template Variables can be used to manipulate the file in various ways to slightly change how it works without having to make your own local copy.

Note that the template_variables: section only needs to be used if you do want to actually change how the Defaults work. Any value not specified is its default value if it has one if not it's just ignored.

Shared Variables are NOT available to separator collections in any Defaults File.

Use Separators

Separators are enabled by default, but can be disabled/enabled per-file and per-library.

An example of disabling separators at the library-level can be seen here

libraries:
  Movies:
    template_variables:
      use_separator: false

And at the file-level

libraries:
  Movies:
    collection_files:
      - default: studio
        template_variables:
          use_separator: false

Separator Styles

Multiple styles are available for Separators, to match Plex's "categories" feature.

The available styles available are:

Style	Value
Amethyst	amethyst
Aqua	aqua
Blue	blue
Brown	stb
Forest	forest
Fuchsia	fuchsia
Gold	gold
Gray	gray
Green	green
Navy	navy
Ocean	ocean
Olive	olive
Orchid	orchid
Original	orig
Pink	pink
Plum	plum
Purple	purple
Red	red
Rust	rust
Salmon	salmon
Sand	sand
Tan	tan

This image shows an example separator in each of the above styles

An example of changing the separator style at the library-level can be seen here

libraries:
  Movies:
    template_variables:
      sep_style: red

And at the file-level

libraries:
  Movies:
    collection_files:
      - default: studio
        template_variables:
          sep_style: stb