Plex-Trakt-Sync

This project adds a two-way-sync between trakt.tv and Plex Media Server. It requires a trakt.tv account but no Plex premium and no Trakt VIP subscriptions, unlike the Plex app provided by Trakt.

Originally created by @Taxel, now maintained by contributors.

Note: The PyTrakt API keys are not stored securely, so if you do not want to have a file containing those on your harddrive, you can not use this project.

Contribute

Looking for a way to contribute?

• find issues with the help-wanted label
• improve documentation docs-needed label
• you can also just create a pull request to improve documentation
• ... more developer contribution docs

---

• Plex-Trakt-Sync
  • Features
  • Pre-requisites
  • Installation
    • pipx
    • Docker Compose
    • Install code from Pull request, development
    • Windows Setup (optional alternative), unsupported
    • Unraid setup, unsupported
    • GitHub, unsupported
  • Setup
  • Configuration
    • Libraries
    • Per server configuration
    • Logging
  • Commands
    • Sync
    • Unmatched
    • Info command
    • Inspect
    • Watch
      • Systemd setup
      • Systemd user setup
  • Good practices
  • Troubleshooting

Features

• Media in Plex are added to Trakt collection
• Ratings are synced
• Watched status are synced (dates are not reported from Trakt to Plex)
• Liked lists in Trakt are downloaded and all movies in Plex belonging to that list are added
• Watchlists are synced
• You can edit the config file to choose what to sync
• None of the above requires a Plex Pass or Trakt VIP membership. Downside: Needs to be executed manually or via cronjob, can not use live data via webhooks.

Pre-requisites

The script is known to work with Python 3.9-3.13 versions.

Installation

pipx

Installation with pipx.

pipx install PlexTraktSync

or, to install specific version:

pipx install PlexTraktSync==0.15.2 --force

and to upgrade:

plextraktsync self-update

which just calls pipx with:

pipx upgrade PlexTraktSync

to run:

plextraktsync sync

NOTE: pipx install will use OS specific paths for Config, Logs, Cache, see platformdirs documentation for details or check output of info command.

Docker Compose

You can setup docker compose file like this:

version: "2"
services:
  plextraktsync:
    image: ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync
    command: sync
    container_name: plextraktsync
    restart: on-failure:2
    volumes:
      - ./config:/app/config
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Europe/Tallinn

You can use specific version 0.25.16:

• image: ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync:0.25.16

or latest 0.25.x version:

• image: ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync:0.25

Note: main is development version and reporting bugs against development versions are not supported.

Run the Docker Container

To run sync:

docker compose run --rm plextraktsync sync

The container will stop after the sync is completed. Read Setup section to run it automatically at set intervals.

Install code from Pull request

This is to install development version to test if pull request would fix some problem.

See contributing guide how to install code from pull request.

Windows Setup (optional alternative)

NOTE: This installation method is not supported. It's documented solely by user contribution.

• Download the latest .zip release from https://github.com/Taxel/PlexTraktSync/tags
• Run setup.bat to install requirements and create optional shortcuts and routines (requires Windows 7sp1 - 11).

Unraid setup

NOTE: This installation method is not supported. It's documented solely by user contribution.

Option 1 for container creation: Create a manual Unraid container of PlexTraktSync:

• Go to the Docker section, under "Docker Containers" and click "Add Container".
  • Click the advanced view to see all of the available parameters.
  • Leave the template blank/unselected.
  • Under Name: enter a name for the docker (e.g., PlexTraktSync).
  • Under Repository: enter ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync:latest (or whatever tag you want).
  • Under Extra Parameters: enter -it for interactive mode.
• Click "Apply".
• The container should start automatically. If not, start it.
• Enter the console for the container.
• Enter plextraktsync to start the credential process described above.

Option 2 for container creation: Utilize the "Community Apps" Unraid Plugin.

• Go to the Plugins tab, paste the Community Apps URL in the URL area, and click "Install".

Once installed (or if already installed):

• Go to the (newly created) Apps tab and search "plextraktsync", and click on the App, and click "Install" (https://forums.unraid.net/topic/38582-plug-in-community-applications/)
• Take all the default settings (the -it switch as outlined elsewhere in the README is already present), and click "Apply".
• The container then installs, and will start.

Schedule (cron) the container to start at given intervals to process the sync

• Go to the Plugins tab, past the User Scripts URL in the URL area, and click "Install" (https://forums.unraid.net/topic/48286-plugin-ca-user-scripts/)

Once installed (or if already installed):

• Go to the Plugins tab, click on "User Scripts", and click the "Add New Script" button
• Name your script accordingly
• Click the "gear" icon next to the script name, and click "Edit Script"
• Remove the "#!/bin/bash" line and add:

#!/bin/bash

# Check if the container is running
if [ "$(docker ps -q -f name=PlexTraktSync)" ]; then
    echo "PlexTraktSync container is already running."
else
    echo "PlexTraktSync container is not running. Starting it now..."
    docker start PlexTraktSync
fi

# Run the sync command inside the container
docker exec PlexTraktSync plextraktsync sync

• The format of the script needs to be docker calling your container name (if you changed it from the default, ie to something like plex-trakt-sync), then issuing the command to sync.
• Click "Save Changes"
• Set the schedule accordingly using the dropdown menu next to the "Run in Background" button

GitHub

NOTE: This installation method is not supported. You will not get support if you use this installation method.

Installing from GitHub is considered developer mode, and it's documented in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Setup

• You will need to create a Trakt API app if you do not already have one:

  • Visit https://trakt.tv/oauth/applications/new
  • Give it a meaningful name
  • Enter urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob as the redirect url
  • You can leave Javascript origins and the Permissions checkboxes blank

• Run plextraktsync login, the script will ask for missing credentials

  Note To setup the credentials in the Docker Container, refer to the Run the Docker Container section

• At first run you will be asked to setup Trakt and Plex access.

  Follow the instructions, your credentials and API keys will be stored in .envand .pytrakt.json files. Plex URL and token is stored in servers.yml.

  If you have 2 Factor Authentication enabled on Plex, input the code when prompted. If you don't have 2FA enabled, just leave the prompt blank and press Enter.

• Cronjobs can be optionally used on Linux or macOS to run the script at set intervals.

  For example, to run this script in a cronjob every two hours:

  $ crontab -e
  0 */2 * * * $HOME/.local/bin/plextraktsync sync
  

  • Note the command in the example above may not immediately work. Use the which plextraktsync command to locate your system's plextraktsync executable file and update it accordingly.

• Instead of cron, a docker scheduler like Ofelia can also be used to run the script at set intervals.

A docker compose example with a 6h interval:

version: "2"
services:
  scheduler:
    image: mcuadros/ofelia:latest
    container_name: scheduler
    depends_on:
      - plextraktsync
    command: daemon --docker
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
    labels:
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync.schedule: "@every 6h"
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync.container: "plextraktsync"
  plextraktsync:
    image: ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync:latest
    container_name: plextraktsync
    command: sync
    volumes:
      - ./config:/app/config

Configuration

To disable parts of the functionality of this software, look no further than config.yml. At first run, the script will create config.yml based on config.default.yml. If you want to customize settings before first run (eg. you don't want full sync) you can copy and edit config.yml before launching the script. Here, in the sync section, you can disable the following things by setting them from true to false in a text editor:

• Downloading liked lists from Trakt and adding them to Plex
• Syncing the watchlists between Plex and Trakt
• Syncing the watched status between Plex and Trakt
• Syncing the collected status between Plex and Trakt

The first execution of the script will (depending on your PMS library size) take a long time. After that, movie details and Trakt lists are cached, so it should run a lot quicker the second time. This does mean, however, that Trakt lists are not updated dynamically (which is fine for lists like "2018 Academy Award Nominees" but might not be ideal for lists that are updated often). Here are the execution times on my Plex server: First run - 1228 seconds, second run - 111 seconds

You can view sync progress in the plextraktsync.log file which will be created.

You can use --edit or --locate flags to config command to open config file in editor or in file browser.

Libraries

By default, all libraries are processed. You can disable libraries by name by changing excluded-libraries in config.yml.

You can also set excluded-libraries per server in servers.yml:

servers:
  Example1:
    token: ~
    urls:
      - http://localhost:32400
    config:
      excluded-libraries:
        - "Family Movies"

Additionally, you can list only libraries to be processed, in this case global excluded-libraries will not be used for this server.

servers:
  Example1:
    token: ~
    urls:
      - http://localhost:32400
    config:
      libraries:
        - "Movies"
        - "TV Shows"

you can see the final list of libraries with info command:

$ plextraktsync --server=Example1 info
Enabled 2 libraries in Plex Server:
 - 1: Movies
 - 2: TV Shows

Per server configuration

If you want to specify your config per server you can do so inside of servers.yml. Within the config part of the server configuration you can specify how that specific server should work.

servers:
  Example1:
    token: ~
    urls:
      - http://localhost:32400
    config:
      sync:
        plex_to_trakt:
          collection: true
        trakt_to_plex:
          liked_lists: false

Using sync in a server config overrides the global sync-config in config.yml.

This can also be used to have different configs between different libraries. To be able to do this you specify the number of servers you need (most likely equal to the number of different config setups you need). For example:

servers:
  Example1:
    token: ~
    urls:
      - http://localhost:32400
    config:
      libraries:
        - "Movies"
      sync:
        plex_to_trakt:
          ratings: true
          watched_status: true
        trakt_to_plex:
          ratings: true
          watched_status: true
  Example2:
    token: ~
    urls:
      - http://localhost:32400
    config:
      libraries:
        - "TV Shows"
      sync:
        plex_to_trakt:
          ratings: true
          watched_status: false
        trakt_to_plex:
          ratings: true
          watched_status: false

The above config would make it so that the "Movies" library syncs both ratings and watched status, while the "TV Shows" library only syncs ratings. To then run the sync you need to specify --server Example1 or --server Example2 to run the sync for that specific server.

Running the sync command without --server will use default server from .env

If you want to run these jobs using ofelia, you can do so by running something similar to this in your docker-compose.yml:

services:
  plextraktsync:
    image: ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync
    command: sync
    container_name: plextraktsync
    profiles: ["schedule"]
    volumes:
      - /configs/mediarr/plextraktsync:/app/config
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
    depends_on:
      - plex
  scheduler:
    image: mcuadros/ofelia:latest
    container_name: scheduler
    command: daemon --docker
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
    labels:
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync.schedule: "0 6,18 * * *"
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync.container: "plextraktsync"
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync.command: "--server 'Example1' sync"
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync2.schedule: "0 12,0 * * *"
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync2.container: "plextraktsync"
      ofelia.job-run.plextraktsync2.command: "--server 'Example2' sync"

If you are running only one PlexTraktSync container, you need to make sure that the two jobs Ofelia jobs don't run at the same time. Ofelia skips scheduling a new job run if the previous job is still running.

Depending on how long it takes for the job to run on your server you might have to keep the schedule of the two jobs seperated with a few minutes or a few hours. If you have two different PlexTraktSync containers in your docker compose, you can run them at the same time.

The above config means that a job is running every 6 hours, alternating between the two "servers". The PlexTraktSync container also has a docker compose profile called "schedule" which means that it won't run automatically when you run for example docker compose up.

Logging

The logging level by default is INFO. This can be changed to DEBUG by editing the "debug" variable in config.yml to true.

By default the logs will append, if you wish to maintain the log of only your last run then edit the "append" variable in config.yml to false.

Commands

Run plextraktsync --help to see available commands. Run plextraktsync COMMAND --help to see help for COMMAND.

$ plextraktsync --help
Usage: plextraktsync [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Plex-Trakt-Sync is a two-way-sync between trakt.tv and Plex Media Server

Options:
  --version              Print version and exit
  --no-cache             Disable cache in for Trakt HTTP requests
  --no-progressbar       Disable progressbar
  --batch-delay INTEGER  Time in seconds between each collection batch submit
                         to Trakt  [default: 5]
  --server NAME          Plex Server name from servers.yml
  --help                 Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  bug-report         Create a pre-populated GitHub issue with information...
  cache              Manage and analyze Requests Cache.
  clear-collections  Clear Movies and Shows collections in Trakt
  config             Print user config for debugging and bug reports.
  download           Downloads movie or subtitles to a local directory
  imdb-import        Import IMDB ratings from CSV file.
  info               Print application and environment version info
  inspect            Inspect details of an object
  login              Log in to Plex and Trakt if needed
  plex-login         Log in to Plex Account to obtain Access Token.
  self-update        Update PlexTraktSync to the latest version using pipx
  sync               Perform sync between Plex and Trakt
  trakt-login        Log in to Trakt Account to obtain Access Token.
  unmatched          List media that has no match in Trakt or Plex
  watch              Listen to events from Plex
  watched-shows      Print a table of watched shows

You can contribute yourself missing documentation.

Sync

The sync subcommand supports --sync=shows and --sync=movies options, so you can sync only specific library types. Or only watchlist: --sync=watchlist.

➔ plextraktsync sync --help
Usage: plextraktsync sync [OPTIONS]

  Perform sync between Plex and Trakt

Options:
  --sync [all|movies|shows|watchlist]
                                  Specify what to sync  [default: all]
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

Unmatched

You can use unmatched command to scan your library and display unmatched movies.

Support for unmatched shows is not yet implemented.

plextraktsync unmatched

Info command

The info command can be used to print package versions, account information, locations of Cache, Config and Logs directories

$ plextraktsync info
PlexTraktSync Version: 0.16.0
Python Version: 3.10.0 (default, Oct  6 2021, 01:11:32) [Clang 13.0.0 (clang-1300.0.29.3)]
Plex API Version: 4.7.2
Trakt API Version: 3.2.1
Cache Dir: /Users/glen/Library/Caches/PlexTraktSync
Config Dir: /Users/glen/Library/Application Support/PlexTraktSync
Log Dir: /Users/glen/Library/Logs/PlexTraktSync
Plex username: nobody
Trakt username: nobody
Plex Server version: 1.24.3.5033-757abe6b4, updated at: 2021-02-21 17:00:00
Server has 2 libraries: ['Movies', 'TV Shows']

Inspect

Inspect command is used to get info about Plex Media Server items, which is useful when debugging problems and reporting issues.

• Plex Web URL from your server:
  • https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/server/53aff62c4bb6027c1ada814d417e83ccdf4d5045/details?key=/library/metadata/123
• Plex Discover URL:
  • https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/provider/tv.plex.provider.discover/details?key=/library/metadata/5d7768258718ba001e311845
• Id from from your Plex Media Server:
  • 123

plextraktsync inspect 123
plextraktsync inspect "https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/server/53aff62c4bb6027c1ada814d417e83ccdf4d5045/details?key=/library/metadata/123"

To avoid problems with various shells, put the value in double quotes.

Watch

You can use the watch command to listen to events from Plex Media Server and scrobble plays.

What is scrobbling?

Scrobbling simply means automatically tracking what you’re watching. Instead of checking in from your phone of the website, this command runs in the background and automatically scrobbles back to Trakt while you enjoy watching your media - Plex [email protected]

To restrict scrobbling to your user only (recommended), set the following in your config.yml:

watch:
  username_filter: true

To run watch command:

plextraktsync watch

or

docker compose run --rm plextraktsync watch

or add command: watch to docker compose file, and docker compose up -d plextraktsync to start the container detached:

version: "2"
services:
  plextraktsync:
    image: ghcr.io/taxel/plextraktsync
    volumes:
      - ./config:/app/config
    command: watch

Systemd setup

Create a systemd unit so that it scrobbles automatically in the background:

[Unit]
Description=PlexTraktSync watch daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=plextraktsync watch
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
User=user
Group=user

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note, depending on your install method you may need to set your ExecStart command as follows:

ExecStart=/path/to/plextraktsync/plextraktsync.sh watch

Following that you will need to enable the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start PlexTraktSync.service
sudo systemctl enable PlexTraktSync.service

Systemd user setup

You can also run as systemd user service.

This walkthough allows to use different servers with the same configuration.

This assumes plextraktsync is installed with pipx for your user.

# [email protected]
[Unit]
Description=PlexTraktSync watch daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecSearchPath=%h/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
ExecStart=plextraktsync watch --server=%i
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Install the service template file:

1. as root: /etc/xdg/systemd/user/[email protected] for all users
2. as your user: ~/.config/systemd/user/[email protected] for your user only

Next, you need to reload systemd:

1. if installed as root: sudo systemctl daemon-reload
2. if installed as user: systemctl --user daemon-reload

Now create instances based on server names from servers.yml, in this example SERVER_NAME.

1. systemctl --user start "plextraktsync@SERVER_NAME.service"
2. systemctl --user status "plextraktsync@SERVER_NAME.service"

for complete logs, you can use journalctl (add -f to follow logs):

1. journalctl --user -u "plextraktsync@SERVER_NAME.service"

If all works, enable it for auto-start on host reboot

1. systemctl --user enable "plextraktsync@SERVER_NAME.service"

For systemd --user session to start without having to log in you need to enable systemd-linger:

1. loginctl enable-linger

Good practices

• Using default Plex Movie and Plex TV Series metadata agents improves script compatibility (for matching or for watchlist). It is recommended to migrate to the new Plex TV Series agent.
• Organize your shows folders and naming according to Plex standard and theMovieDatabase (tmdb) order. If Plex doesn't properly identify your media, you can use the Fix Match and the Match Hinting. Also check the Episode Ordering preference (under Advanced) to correspond with your files.
• Use tmdb as source for TV Shows if possible, because it's the Trakt primary data source (switched from tvdb in Jan-2021).

Troubleshooting

I have duplicate watched episodes sent to Trakt at every sync

Check your Plex episodes ordering compared to Trakt ordering. If episodes are in a different order, it should not be a problem because they are identified with ids. But if a season or an episode is missing on Trakt (and tmdb) it can't be synced. You can fix it by adding the missing episodes or edit metadata (eg. missing tvdb or imdb ids) on tmdb or report a metadata issue on Trakt (answers). It's free for anyone to sign up and edit info at tmdb. Trakt will update from tmdb data.

I have many matching errors in logs

Make sure you use good practices about Plex agent and files organization as stated above. Check if episodes are not missing on Trakt as explained in previous answer, and check if external ids are populated on tmdb.

I have season 0 matching errors

Season 0 folder must only contain episodes belonging to season 0, also named specials. Trailers, deleted scenes, featurettes, interviews,... must be stored in a separate Extra folder (not in season 0) according to Plex rules. Keep in mind that seasons 0 aren't really official so datasources (tmdb, imdb and tvdb) sometimes don't correspond. Check season 0 of shows on trakt.tv to identify those special episodes. Use tmdb as Plex source as much as you can.

How to sync multiple users ?

The easiest way is to use containers with custom config folder for each user: Multi-User docker-compose.

Can this run on Synology, HomeAssistant, Portainer,... ?

Yes using docker, check Discussions page.

I have another question

Check Discussions, maybe someone already asked and found the answer.