How to name your files so they get recognized automatically

Guide · Updated October 30, 2026 · 5 min read

A library with posters is built from a single clue: the file name. The program cleans it up, guesses whether it's a movie or an episode, and looks it up in a database like The Movie Database. When the name is clear, it gets it right almost every time. When it says DVD_RIP_FINAL_v2.avi, no amount of magic will save it.

These rules work for Spectaculum, and also for Plex, Kodi, Jellyfin or Emby, which use very similar conventions.

Movies

The safest format is Title (Year):

His Girl Friday (1940).mp4
The Secret in Their Eyes (2009).mkv

The year is the most important thing after the title: it tells remakes and movies with the same name apart. If you prefer one folder per movie, give the folder and the file the same name:

Movies/The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)/The Secret in Their Eyes (2009).mkv

Technical tags: you can leave them

Spectaculum ignores the usual quality and language tags, so this works too:

The.Secret.In.Their.Eyes.2009.1080p.BluRay.x264.Latino.mkv

Dots and underscores are read as spaces, and words like 1080p, BluRay, x264, HEVC, Latino or Dual are dropped before searching.

TV shows

What identifies an episode is the season and the episode number. There are two formats that are recognized with no trouble:

Sherlock Holmes S01E01.mp4 (the most common)
Sherlock Holmes 1x01.mp4

A tidy structure helps, though it's not required:

Shows/Sherlock Holmes (1954)/Season 1/Sherlock Holmes S01E01.mp4

All episodes of a show are grouped by name, so write it the same way in every file. If a show has versions from different years, add the year so they don't get mixed up.

External subtitles

Put the subtitle file in the same folder as the video. In Spectaculum, the .srt files in that folder show up in the player's subtitles menu (currently with OneDrive; for the other sources there's the OpenSubtitles search). For other programs to load it automatically too, it's a good idea to give it the same name as the video, with the language at the end:

His Girl Friday (1940).mp4
His Girl Friday (1940).es.srt

Common mistakes

Name	Problem	Better like this
`movie1.mp4`	Doesn't say which movie it is	`Casablanca (1942).mp4`
`The Office 5.mp4`	Season 5 or episode 5?	`The Office S05E01.mp4`
`Dune.mkv`	There are several movies with that name	`Dune (2021).mkv`
`ep 3 - the return.avi`	Missing the show and the season	`My Show S01E03.avi`

If it still comes out wrong

In Spectaculum, long-press the poster (or right-click on a computer) and pick the correct title from the list. Videos that couldn't be recognized end up in Unidentified, in Settings, so you can review them at your own pace.

Home videos and your own recordings

Videos of birthdays, trips or classes aren't in any movie database, so they won't have a poster. You can still watch them from the Files tab, which shows your folders just as they are.