Where apps hide your files

Finding the Plex Media Server data folder

Updated 2026-10-28 · 6 min read

Plex Media Server stores its library database, posters and thumbnails in one folder inside your Library, not next to your movies, and its settings in a separate .plist. That folder is usually the biggest thing Plex puts on your boot drive, and it can be moved.

Where the data folder is

~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server

This is the data directory on macOS, and it is a normal (not hidden) folder inside the hidden-by-default ~/Library. To open it, choose Go > Go to Folder in Finder (⇧⌘G), paste the path and press Return. From Terminal:

open ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server

Your actual movies, shows and music are not in there. Plex reads them from wherever you keep them and only stores its own records of them in this folder.

Two smaller folders sit elsewhere in ~/Library:

• ~/Library/Caches/PlexMediaServer: caches, including transcoder working files and Downloads jobs being prepared (Transcode/Sync).
• ~/Library/Logs/Plex Media Server: log files, per Plex's support page. Servers older than 0.9.16 wrote them straight into ~/Library/Logs.

On a Mac the server's settings live in ~/Library/Preferences/com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist, not in the data folder. Plex's backup and migration guides name this file as the one to copy alongside the data folder. (On Linux and NAS installs the same settings sit in a Preferences.xml inside the data folder, which is why many guides mention that file.)

What is inside

Names differ a little between versions, so list yours first:

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server

Folder or file	What it holds
Metadata/	Posters, artwork and other downloaded metadata, kept in "bundle" packages. Plex names this and Media as the usual bulk.
Media/	Generated per-item data, including video preview thumbnails if you turned them on.
Plug-in Support/	Includes the Databases folder with the library database and its automatic backups.
Crash Reports/	Crash logs. Plex uploads and removes them the next time the server starts.
Codecs/	Transcoder components the server downloads (present on most installs).

The library database (the record of every title, watch state, collection and match) is Plug-in Support/Databases/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db, with a companion com.plexapp.plugins.library.blobs.db. If you only want to protect one thing, protect those together with the .plist above. When the Backup database every three days task is on (Settings > Server > Scheduled Tasks), Plex keeps up to three dated copies in the same folder, named like com.plexapp.plugins.library.db-2026-05-31. Plex warns that these cover only the database, not your artwork and metadata.

How much space it takes

Plex says several gigabytes is common. One of the most common causes of a much bigger folder, per Plex, is video preview thumbnails: with them turned on, a large library can take dozens or even hundreds of gigabytes. To measure it without opening anything:

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/*

That prints one size per subfolder, so you can see whether Metadata or Media is the heavy one.

Freeing space the safe way

Use Plex's own tools before touching files. In Plex Web, the server's Troubleshooting settings page has Clean Bundles (artwork left behind by removed items) and Optimize Database, and the scheduled tasks remove old bundles weekly. If preview thumbnails are the weight, edit the library, open its Advanced tab and click Delete Preview Thumbnails, then turn their generation off or they come back.

If you clear anything by hand, quit Plex Media Server first (menu bar icon, then quit) and limit it to the contents of ~/Library/Caches/PlexMediaServer. Move them to the Trash in Finder rather than using rm; Downloads jobs that were being prepared start over. Do not delete Plug-in Support, the .plist or the whole data folder unless you accept starting over: you would lose watch history, custom posters, collections and server identity, and every title would have to be matched again.

Transcoding writes temporary files too. Settings > Transcoder has a Transcoder temporary directory setting (click Show Advanced if it is hidden) for pointing that work at another drive. Plex warns against a network share or a folder inside your media library.

Moving the data folder to another drive

The server has no Mac setting for its data folder. Plex's support article on large data folders gives a symbolic link as the way to relocate it on macOS. The same article recommends another internal drive and warns that an external (USB) or network location can cause poor or broken behaviour, so an external disk is a risk you accept. Keep the original until the new setup works:

1. Quit Plex Media Server.
2. Copy Plex Media Server to the new drive, for example /Volumes/FastDrive/Plex Media Server, with Finder or cp -R. Use a drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended.
3. Rename the original folder to Plex Media Server old.
4. In Terminal, create a link in its place: ln -s "/Volumes/FastDrive/Plex Media Server" ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server
5. Start Plex Media Server and check that your libraries, posters and watch history are there. Plex stresses it must be a real symlink, not a Finder alias.
6. Delete the old copy only after a few days of normal use.

The drive must be connected and mounted before the server starts, or the server will not find its data.

Backing up or moving to a new Mac

Plex's backup guide is short: quit the server, then copy the whole Plex Media Server folder and ~/Library/Preferences/com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist. Zipping the folder first is faster for big libraries; do not leave the zip inside the data folder, because the server may clean out files it does not recognise.

For a new Mac, Plex's migration guide adds a few steps. Turn off Empty trash automatically after every scan on the old server first. On the new Mac, install Plex Media Server, sign out under Settings > Server > General, and quit it. Replace its data folder and .plist with your copies, then restart the Mac: Plex says macOS keeps .plist files in memory, so the restart is needed. Start the server, then edit each library to add the media's new location and scan it before removing the old path.

Why Finder and Spotlight searches skip it

The data sits inside ~/Library, and Spotlight and Finder searches leave those results out. The files are also named for what they are: hashes, bundles and a database, not your titles.

Finding these files next time

Everywhere indexes file names inside ~/Library, so typing com.plexapp finds the database, its dated backups and the settings .plist, and typing PlexMediaServer finds the cache folder. Press ⌘↵ to reveal a result in Finder. These all sit in unprotected parts of ~/Library, so no extra permission is needed; a data folder moved to an external drive is covered once Everywhere has Full Disk Access. It matches file names only, not what is inside them.

Common questions

Where does Plex Media Server store its data on a Mac?

In ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server, including the library database and metadata. Server settings live in ~/Library/Preferences/com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist, and your media files stay wherever you keep them.

How do I move Plex metadata to another drive on Mac?

Quit the server, copy the data folder to the drive, rename the original, and create a symbolic link with ln -s at the original path. Plex recommends an internal drive and warns that external or network locations can misbehave.

Is it safe to delete the Plex cache on a Mac?

The cache is ~/Library/Caches/PlexMediaServer; quit the server first and its contents are rebuilt. For space in the data folder, use Clean Bundles and Optimize Database in the server's Troubleshooting settings instead of deleting files.

Why is my Plex Media Server folder so big?

Mostly Metadata (artwork) and Media, and above all video preview thumbnails if they are turned on. Run du -sh on the subfolders to see which one it is.