Kodi Community Forum

I recently migrated my library from local disk to a MySQL database. I followed the wiki and did an export then import. It all went well.

However, now I'm left with a bunch of extra files from the export and I'm not sure what I can remove and what needs to stay. The video files obviously stay. I'm certain the nfo files can be removed because that information is in the database now.

What about all the pictures? In the movies directory each movie now has a poster and a fanart picture from the export. Are those files still in use or were they imported to the database? When I add a new movie I don't get new picture files for them so I'm assuming all those exported pictures are no longer needed?

Same for all the .actors directories and all the pictures within them. Can those be removed or are are they used from their present location?

If you export a library, the nfo files will be created because Kodi might think you have a good reason for exporting your library . Maybe you want to import it again and then, you don´t have to scrape everything new. So...if the infos for your movies won´t change (rating or anything else) I would keep those nfos. Maybe you might have issues with your library and need to set it up new....they won´t hurt and they won´t need much space.

Same for any picture. If you take a look at the nfo file, there should be links to fanart, poster and actors. So, once imported to the library, those images can be removed. But...if you will setup your library new (for whatever reason) those images will be downloaded again and it will take longer. So in the end it´s your choice....

Maybe I mixed up somethig as I´m not very familar with MySQL. So I would start to delete one of those *-fanart.jpg or *-poster.jpg files and see if it hurts in any way

I don't believe that the images themselves are stored in the database - rather, it stores a link to them and then they get downloaded and cached on each client. The only benefit of storing them locally, such as alongside the video files, is thus that new clients (or a re-scrape) can get at them slightly faster and not need to re-download them from the Internet.