Probably time to archive this repository

[Mantene]

Unfortunately, Plex is deprecating and will eventually remove completely, the ability to use "legacy" metadata agents such as Audnexus. It already does not allow you to use them in NEW libraries (I think there is a work-around for the moment, but I am sure that will go away soon enough). It is a shame. This guide completely revolutionized how I managed and listened to audiobooks and really made my life so much easier in that respect. I guess I will need to make the switch to AudioBookShelf now. I had been ignoring it since Plex did EVERYTHING I needed done. Plex is getting more and more locked down and maybe this is a good time for me to start exploring other options for movies and tv as well.

[seanap]

Thanks for raising this, and I agree.

I started this guide back in 2015, and the audiobook ecosystem (and Plex itself) was a very different landscape. A lot of what this repo documented was essentially “how to get from messy inputs → sane metadata/chapters → a workable Plex experience,” and for a long time that was genuinely hard.

Fast-forward to today:

Plex is actively deprecating/removing legacy metadata agent workflows (like Audnexus and related approaches), which was a core pillar of this repo.

The modern audiobook toolchain has improved a lot. Tools like Libation + better tagging/renaming flows + consistently more availability of chapterized m4bs have made many of the old pain points far less common. For the few stragglers or odd formats, ABS does a fantastic job of matching and chapterizing.

Most importantly: I haven’t been using or validating this full workflow for years, and I don’t have the bandwidth to keep it current.

So I think the right move is to archive the repository so it remains available as historical reference, making it clear that it’s no longer maintained. For anyone who still wants to carry the torch please feel free to fork it. If someone has the time and interest to maintain a modernized successor, I’m happy to link to a maintained fork in the README (or discuss handing off ownership if there’s a clear, committed maintainer).

I'll add an ARCHIVED / UNMAINTAINED notice and a short “Where to go next” section to the README (and repo description) in the near future after we've had some time to discuss in case there are any objections.

Huge thanks to everyone who used this, contributed PRs/issues, and shared improvements over the years. I’m glad it helped as many people as it did.