Sonarr Settings

Sonarr Settings

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Media Management

Note: Some of these settings are only visible through 'show advanced' settings which is on the top bar under the search bar

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Naming

• Rename Episodes - If this is toggled off (no check in the box) Sonarr will use the existing file name if renaming is disabled
• Replace Illegal Characters - If this is toggled off (no check in the box) Sonarr will replace illegal characters.

Example: \ # / $ * < > just to name a few

Standard Episode Format

Here you will select the naming convention for your episodes

• Dropdown Box (upper right corner)
  • Left hand one - Replaces all spaces with selected variable
  • Right hand one - Sets to default upper and lower case, all lowercase or all uppercase

Series Naming

Input	Result
{Series Title}	Series Name!
{Series CleanTitleYear}	Series Title 2020
{Series TitleFirstCharacter}	S
{Series CleanTitle}	Series Title
{Series TitleThe}	Series Title, The
{Series TitleYear}	Series Title (2020)

Series IDs

Input	Result
{ImdbId}	tt12345
{Tmdbid}	123456
{TvMazeId}	54321

Seasons

Input	Result
{season:0}	1
{season:00}	01

Episode

Input	Result
{episode:0}	1
{episode:00}	01

Air Date

Input	Result
{Air-Date}	2020-09-03
{Air Date}	2020 09 03

Episode Title

Input	Result
{Episode Title}	Episode Title
{Episode CleanTitle}	Episode Title

Quality

Input	Result
{Quality Full}	HDTV 720p Proper
{Quality Title}	HDTV 720p

Media Info

Input	Result
{MediaInfo Simple}	x264 DTS
{MediaInfo VideoCodec}	x264
{MediaInfo AudioChannels}	5.1
{MediaInfo SubtitleLanguages}	[EN]
{MediaInfo VideoBitDepth}	8
{MediaInfo Full}	x264 DTS [EN+DE] *
{MediaInfo AudioCodec}	DTS
{MediaInfo AudioLanguages}	[EN+DE]
{MediaInfo VideoCodec}	x264
{MediaInfo VideoDynamicRange}	HDR

* MediaInfo Full/AudioLanguages/SubtitleLanguages support a :EN+DE suffix allowing you to filter the languages included in the filename. Use -DE to exclude specific languages. Appending + (eg :EN+) will output [EN]/[EN+--]/[--] depending on excluded languages. For example {MediaInfo Full:EN+DE}.

Other

Input	Result
{Release Group}	Rls Grp
{Preferred Words}	iNTERNAL

Original

Input	Result
{Original Title}	Series.Title.S01E01.HDTV.x264.EVOLVE
{Original Filename}	Movie.title.s01e01hdtv.x264.EVOLVE

Daily Episode Format

Here you will select the naming convention for episodes that air daily

See Standard Episode Format

Anime Episode Format

Here you will select the naming convention for Anime series
Note: Typically anime is aired in an absolute order or also known as production order. Usually this is shown as e001, e002...e104, e105 ect. When a series is set to use Anime this setting will pull the absolute order from TheTVDB which is usually one season. an example of this can be seen HERE

All other settings are as above in the Standard Episode Format section

Absolute Episode Number

Input	Result
{absolute:0}	1
{absolute:00}	01
{absolute:000}	001

Anime naming scheme

Renaming your files, of course, depends on your personal preference. Many users though wonder about how they can make their anime work with Kodi or Plex. While usual tv gets released by the scene in a perfectly parsable way for your htpc, anime does not. The solution is simple though, just rename your anime to tvdb-style.

{Series.CleanTitle}.S{season:00}E{episode:00}.{absolute:000}.{Quality.Full}-{Release.Group}

The above renaming scheme is an example that will let your anime have almost the same style as episodes of regular tv. Let’s analyze and see why this naming scheme is good for you.

{Series.CleanTitle}.S{season:00}E{episode:00}.{absolute:000}.{Quality.Full}-{Release.Group}

This is the part that the Kodi/Plex scraper is interested in. It will be able to parse it like any regular tv show.

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{Series.CleanTitle}.S{season:00}E{episode:00}.{absolute:000}.{Quality.Full}-{Release.Group}

This part isn’t really obvious. Why would you need the absolute number in there? It’s for forward compatibility. If you ever want to rename your anime to another style or if tvdb changes seasons and you want to fix the resulting wrong season/episode number, you would do it based on this absolute number. Having this will save you many headaches in the future.

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{Series.CleanTitle}.S{season:00}E{episode:00}.{absolute:000}.{Quality.Full}-{Release.Group}

This part is for forward compatibility also. If something goes wrong with your library or you lose your database, you want Sonarr to be able to rescrape the quality of your files.

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{Series.CleanTitle}.S{season:00}E{episode:00}.{absolute:000}.{Quality.Full}-{Release.Group}

The same goes for group. If you have a file, with the group in the end like this, Sonarr will be able to detect the group when this show is in your library. Feel free to modify this naming scheme to your personal preference or take comfort in knowing that the scheme, as described here, is well tested.

One more note. If you ever want to rename your files to exactly their original state, you can use AniDB O’Matic for that. It’s a tool that hooks directly into the info on anidb and parses your files by hash. It can then rename to the original name as stored at anidb. Be warned though. The hashing may take a very long time.

Anime Manual Import Issue

Per the forum post here , Sonarr currently has trouble parsing absolute episode numbers over 100, since it then treats the first digit as a season with the following two digits as the episode number. The current workaround for this issue is to add any release group name in brackets at the beginning of the file name.

Example: * Bad absolute file name: Show.234.Episode.Name.mkv * Modified file name: [DND] Show.234.Episode.Name.mkv

Folders

• Create Empty Media folders - This will create an empty folder during disk scan
• Delete Empty Folders - This will remove any empty folders during disk scan

Importing

• Skip Free Space Check - Use when Sonarr is unable to detect free space from your series root folder

Only visible with advanced toggled

• Minimum Free Space - Toggling this will prevent import if it would leave less than this amount of disk space available

Only visible with advanced toggled

• Use Hardlinks instead of Copy - Use Hardlinks when trying to copy files from torrents that are still being seeded (for more information on this click HERE)

Only visible with advanced toggled

• Import Extra Files - Import matching extra files (subtitles, nfo, etc) after importing a file

File Management

• Ignore Deleted Episodes - Episodes deleted from disk are automatically unmonitored in Sonarr
• Download Proper & Repacks - Should Sonrra automatically upgrade to propers when available? (see link for explanation on Proper and Repack)
  • Prefer and Upgrade - will prefer proper/repack if one is available (gives it a higher rating)
  • Do not upgrade automatically - This will not allow it to upgrade automatically but will still be rated accordingly.
  • Do not prefer - Use 'Do not Prefer' to sort by preferred word score over propers/repacks, essentially putting the proper/repack lower on the list
• Analyse video files - Extract file information such as resolution, runtime and codec information from files. This requires Sonarr to read parts of the file which may cause high disk or network activity during scans.

• Rescan Series Folder after Refresh
  • Always - This will rescan series folder based upon Tasks Schedule
  • After Manual Refresh - You will have to manually rescanning the disk
  • Never - Just as it says, NEVER

• Change File Date
  • None - Sonarr will not change the date that shows in your given file browser
  • Sonarr - Local Release - The date the video was aired locally
  • Sonarr - UTC Release date - The date the video was released based upon the UTC

• Recycling Bin - Designate a location for deleted files to go to (just in case you want to retrieve them before the bin is taken out)

• Recycling Bin Cleanup - This is how old a given file can be before it is deleted permanently

Permissions

• Set Permissions - This will allow Sonarr to set the given file permission when a given file is imported or renamed
• chmod folder - This is the permission level that Sonarr will set for a given file on import or rename (more information HERE)
  • The drop down box has a preset list of very commonly used permissions that can be used. However, you can manually enter a folder octal if you wish.
• chmod Group - This only works if the user running Sonarr is the owner of the file. It's better to ensure the download client uses the same group as Sonarr.

Root Folders

• Path - This shows the path to your media
• Free Space - This is the free space being reported to Sonarr from the system
• Unmapped Folders - ??
• The X at the end - This will remove this given root path

• Add folder - This allows you to select a root path for a place to either place new downloads into this folder or to allow Sonarr to scan existing media

Profiles

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Quality Profiles

• Here you'll be allowed to set profiles for which you can have for the quality of series you're looking to download.
• When selecting an existing profile or adding an additional profile a new window will appear
  Note: The quality with the blue box will be the quality that is set for Upgrade Until (basically the cutoff)
  • Name - Here you'll select a UNIQUE name for the profile to which you are creating
  • Upgrades allowed - If you tell Sonarr to download a Web 1080p as it is the first release of a specific episode then later somebody is able to upload a Bluray-1080p then with this selected Sonarr will automatically upgrade to the better quality
    Note: This is only if you have Bluray-1080p higher than Web 1080p w/in the Qualities section
  • Qualities - For definitions for qualities please click here
  • Edit Groups - Some qualities are grouped together to reduce the size of the list as well grouping like releases, Prime example of this is WebDL and WebRip as these are very similar and typically have similar bitrates. When editing the groups you can change the preference within each of the groups.
    • Qualities higher in the list are more preferred. Qualities within the same group are equal. Only checked qualities are wanted
      Note: By default the qualities are set from lowest (bottom) to highest (top)

Language Profiles

• Here you'll be allowed to set profiles for which you can have for the language of series you're looking to download.
  • Name - Select a unique name for this given profile
  • Upgrades allowed - If you tell Sonarr download a Chinese version as it is the first release of a specific series then later somebody is able to upload an English version then with this selected Sonarr will automatically upgrade to the better quality
    Note: This is only valid if English is higher in the language list than Chinese and both are selected
  • Languages - Languages higher in the list are more preferred. Only checked languages are wanted

Delay Profiles

• Delay profiles allow you to reduce the number of releases that will be downloaded for an {{{MEDIA}}}, by adding a delay while Sonarr will continue to watch for releases that better match your preferences.
  • Protocol - This will either be Usenet or Torrent depending on which download protocol you're using
  • Usenet Delay - Set by the number of minutes you'll want to wait before the download to start
  • Torrent Delay - Set by the number of minutes you'll want to wait before the download to start
  • Bypass if Highest Quality - Bypass the delay profile if the highest quality for that {{{MEDIA}}} is found and grab once the first instance of the highest ranked quality is found. Otherwise wait for the best quality release until the end of the delay period.
  • Tags - This is where you'll select any relevant tags that you'll be using for this scheme
• Wrench icon - This will allow you to edit the delay profile
• Plus icon - Create a new profile

Example: Some media will receive half a dozen different releases of varying quality in the hours after a release, and without delay profiles Sonarr might try to download all of them. With delay profiles, Sonarr can be configured to ignore the first few hours of releases.

Delay profiles are also helpful if you want to emphasize one protocol (Usenet or BitTorrent) over the other. (See Example 3)

How Delay Profiles Work

The timer begins as soon as Sonarr detects an {{{MEDIA}}} has a release available. This release will show up in your Queue with a clock icon to indicate that it is under a delay. Please note that the clock starts from the releases uploaded time and not from the time Sonarr sees it.

During the delay period, any new releases that become available will be noted by Sonarr. When the delay timer expires, Sonarr will download the single release which best matches your quality preferences.

The timer period can be different for Usenet and Torrents. Each profile can be associated with one or more tags to allow you to customize which shows have which profiles. A delay profile with no tag is considered the default and applies to all shows that do not have a specific tag.

NOTE: Delay profiles start from the timestamp that the indexer reports the release was uploaded. This means that any content older than the number of minutes you have set are not impacted in any way by your delay profile, and will be downloaded immediately. In addition, any manual searches for content (non-RSS feed searches) will ignore delay profile settings.

Examples

For each example, assume the user has the follow quality profile active: {{{QUALITY1}}} and above are allowed {{{QUALITY2}}} is the quality cutoff * {{{QUALITY3}}} is the highest ranked quality

Example 1:

In this simple example, the profile is set with a 120 minute (two hour) delay for both Usenet and Torrent.

At 11:00pm the first release for an {{{MEDIA}}} is detected by Sonarr and it was uploaded at 10:50pm and the 120 minute clock begins. At 12:50am, Sonarr will evaluate any releases it has found in the past two hours, and download the best one, which is {{{QUALITY2}}}.

At 3:00am another release is found, which is {{{QUALITY2}}} that was added to your indexer at 2:46am. Another 120 minute clock begins. At 4:46am the best-available release is downloaded. Since the quality cutoff is now reached, the {{{MEDIA}}} no longer is upgradable and Sonarr will stop looking for new releases.

At any point, if a {{{QUALITY3}}} release is found, it will be downloaded immediately because it is the highest-ranking quality. If there is a delay timer currently active it will be cancelled.

Example 2:

This example has different timers for Usenet and Torrents. Assume a 120 minute timer for Usenet and a 180 minute timer for BitTorrent.

At 11:00pm the first release for an {{{MEDIA}}} is detected by Sonarr and both timers begin. The release was added to the indexer at 10:15pm At 12:15am, Sonarr will evaluate any releases, and if there are any acceptable Usenet releases, the best one will be downloaded and both timers will end. If not, Sonarr will wait until 12:15am and download the best release, regardless of which source it came from.

Example 3:

A common use for delay profiles is to emphasize one protocol over another. For example, you might only want to download a BitTorrent release if nothing has been uploaded to Usenet after a certain amount of time.

You could set a 60 minute timer for BitTorrent, and a 0 minute timer for Usenet.

If the first release that is detected is from Usenet, Sonarr will download it immediately.

If the first release is from BitTorrent, Sonarr will set a 60 minute timer. If any qualifying Usenet release is detected during that timer, the BitTorrent release will be ignored and the Usenet release will be grabbed.

Release Profiles

• Not all releases are created equal, each release group has their own way of packaging and encoding their material. Here you'll be able to select the preferred releases you're looking for
• Enable Profile - Toggling this given profile on or off
• Must Contain - The release must contain at least one of these terms (case insensitive)
• Must Not Contain - The release will be rejected if it contains one or more of terms (case insensitive)
• Preferred:
  • Here you can select a given term and give it a score.
  • Example: Let's say you're looking for releases with a specific grouping of words. Let's say you want to tell Sonarr that you want Repacks or Propers over regular releases. Here you'll put the word Repack in one of the fields and give it a value (say 100) but, you're also looking for DTS-HD audio so you'll put that in there and also give it a score (say 100 again). When Sonarr goes through and looks at all the releases from the RSS feed and it comes across a release that has both Repack and DTS-HD that will give it a score of 200. Which is much higher than all the others that don't have either of those words. This tells Sonarr that this has a higher score and it will be the first file picked for download.
• Include Preferred when Renaming - When utilizing the {Preferred Words} tag in the naming scheme
• Indexer - Specify what indexer the profile applies to.
  This is useful if you only want specific releases from a given indexer/tracker
• Tags - With giving this release profile a tag you'll be able to tag a given series to have it play by the rules set here. If you leave this field blank these rules will apply to all series

Quality

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Quality Table Meanings

• Title - The name of the Quality in the GUI (configurable)
• Max - The maximum Megabytes per Minute (MB/min) a quality can have.
• Megabytes Per Minute - Self Explanatory
• Min - The minimum Megabytes per Minute (MB/min) a quality can have.
• Preferred - The preferred Megabytes per Minute (MB/min) a quality can have.
• Quality - The scene quality name (hardcoded)
• Size Limit - Self Explanatory

Qualities Defined

• Unknown - Self Explanatory
• SDTV - Post air rips from an analog source (usually cable television or OTA standard definition). The image quality is generally good (for the resolution) and they are usually encoded in DivX/XviD or MP4.
• WEBDL-480p - WEB-DL (P2P) refers to a file losslessly ripped from a streaming service, such as Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Discovery GO, BBC iPlayer, etc., or downloaded via an online distribution website such as iTunes. The quality is quite good, since they are not reencoded. The video (H.264 or H.265) and audio (AC3/AAC) streams are usually extracted from the iTunes or Amazon Video and remuxed into a MKV container without sacrificing quality. An advantage with these releases is that, like BD/DVDRips, they usually have no onscreen network logos. These are nearly as good as a Blu-ray source but can suffer from audio lag or visual artifacts from the adaptive bitrate of streaming services. If a ripper's internet connection drops to a point where the bitrate lowers, the source bitrate could change dynamically, causing variations in picture quality. Most releases that suffer from an extreme amount of visual artifacts are NUKED and a PROPER is generally released to fix any wild variations in adaptive bitrate. This will be in 480p (SD) quality.
• WEBRip-480p - In a WEB-Rip (P2P), the file is often extracted using the HLS or RTMP/E protocols and remuxed from a TS, MP4 or FLV container to MKV. This will be in 480p (SD) quality.
• DVD - A re-encode of the final released DVD9. If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality (for the resolution). DVDrips are usually released in DivX/XviD or MP4.
• Bluray-480p - A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, downscaled to 480p resolution (720x480 @ 16:9, any other Aspect Ratio may be a different resolution). If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality for the resolution. Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to DivX, XviD, or AVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while drastically reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4, but some DivX/XviD are around as well which use AVI.
• HDTV-720p - A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, but broadcast over HD cable or satellite (1280x720 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). It may be modified for runtime or content depending on the network it came from. This is released usually several months after a retail release, but sometimes upscaled versions of a Standard Definition film are released on cable channels such as STARZ or HBO, and they would be the only HD copies of that specific film available. These are generally MKV or MP4.
• HDTV-1080p - A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, but broadcast over HD cable or satellite (1920x1080 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). It may be modified for runtime or content depending on the network it came from. This is released usually several months after a retail release, but sometimes upscaled versions of a Standard Definition film are released on cable channels such as STARZ or HBO, and they would be the only HD copies of that specific film available. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.

• WEBRip-720p - In a WEB-Rip (P2P), the file is often extracted using the HLS or RTMP/E protocols and remuxed from a TS, MP4 or FLV container to MKV. This will be in 720p quality.
• Bluray-720p - A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, downscaled to 720p resolution (1280x720 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality for the resolution. Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to AVC or HEVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while drastically reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
• WEBDL-1080p - WEB-DL (P2P) refers to a file losslessly ripped from a streaming service, such as Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Discovery GO, BBC iPlayer, etc., or downloaded via an online distribution website such as iTunes. The quality is quite good, since they are not reencoded. The video (H.264 or H.265) and audio (AC3/AAC) streams are usually extracted from the iTunes or Amazon Video and remuxed into a MKV container without sacrificing quality. An advantage with these releases is that, like BD/DVDRips, they usually have no onscreen network logos. These are nearly as good as a Blu-ray source but can suffer from audio lag or visual artifacts from the adaptive bitrate of streaming services. If a ripper's internet connection drops to a point where the bitrate lowers, the source bitrate could change dynamically, causing variations in picture quality. Most releases that suffer from an extreme amount of visual artifacts are NUKED and a PROPER is generally released to fix any wild variations in adaptive bitrate. This will be in 1080p quality.
• WEBRip-1080p - In a WEB-Rip (P2P), the file is often extracted using the HLS or RTMP/E protocols and remuxed from a TS, MP4 or FLV container to MKV. This will be in 1080p quality.
• Bluray-1080p - A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, at its native 1080p resolution (1920x1080 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). If possible this is released PRE retail. It should be excellent quality and the same resolution as the source. Bitrates may vary, but these are generally encoded to AVC or HEVC and offer the tradeoff of a small perceived quality reduction over the original source while slightly reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
• Remux-1080p - A remux is a rip of a Blu-ray or HD DVD disc to another container format or just stripping the disc of menus and bonus material while keeping the contents of its audio and video streams intact (also keeping the current codecs), guaranteeing the exact 1:1 movie quality as on original disc. This is at 1080p quality.
• HDTV-2160p - TVRip is a capture source from an capture card. HDTV stands for captured source from HD television. With an HDTV source, the quality can sometimes even surpass DVD. Movies in this format are starting to grow in popularity. Some advertisement and commercial banner can be seen on some releases during playback. This is at 2160p (4K) quality.
• WEBDL-2160p - WEB-DL (P2P) refers to a file losslessly ripped from a streaming service, such as Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu, Crunchyroll, Discovery GO, BBC iPlayer, etc., or downloaded via an online distribution website such as iTunes. The quality is quite good, since they are not reencoded. The video (H.264 or H.265) and audio (AC3/AAC) streams are usually extracted from the iTunes or Amazon Video and remuxed into a MKV container without sacrificing quality. An advantage with these releases is that, like BD/DVDRips, they usually have no onscreen network logos. These are nearly as good as a Blu-ray source but can suffer from audio lag or visual artifacts from the adaptive bitrate of streaming services. If a ripper's internet connection drops to a point where the bitrate lowers, the source bitrate could change dynamically, causing variations in picture quality. Most releases that suffer from an extreme amount of visual artifacts are NUKED and a PROPER is generally released to fix any wild variations in adaptive bitrate. This will be in 2160p (4K) quality.
• WEBRip-2160p - In a WEB-Rip (P2P), the file is often extracted using the HLS or RTMP/E protocols and remuxed from a TS, MP4 or FLV container to MKV. This will be in 2160p (4k) quality.
• Bluray-2160p - A re-encode of the final released Blu-ray, at its native 2160p resolution (3840x2160 @ 16:9, any other aspect ratio may be a different resolution). 4K versions of films that are released in generally HEVC codec and could be either 8-bit or 10-bit color reproduction or from an HDR source. slightly reducing filesize. These are generally MKV or MP4 container.
• Remux-2160p - A remux is a rip of a Blu-ray or HD DVD disc to another container format or just stripping the disc of menus and bonus material while keeping the contents of its audio and video streams intact (also keeping the current codecs), guaranteeing the exact 1:1 movie quality as on original disc. This is at 2160p (4K) quality.

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