NFO files

NFO files can be used to provide data for a video file in XBMC or influence the search behaviour of scrapers. In particular they are helpful if the information fetched from a web site does not match the video file, or data for that particular file does not exist.

By default at the time of scanning, if the media folder contains a correctly named *.nfo file, then XBMC will load the *.nfo file and attempt to either, in the case of it containing XML data get the meta-data directly from the .nfo file or will parse it for a direct URL to the scraper info page. This allows XBMC to skip its normal lookup and/or search procedures; this is useful if a file's information is not available on any of the scraper sites or if the file-matching criteria fail for the particular file.

Getting an .NFO file
Various options:

.NFO exists
If you have a movie with an .NFO file already, continue with the next section.

Create an .NFO file (recommended)

 * This is recommended to have .NFO files only where needed.
 * Create a text file with a text editor (e.g. notepad) with exactly the same name as the movie file (if all movies in one dir; in case each movie has its own folder, place the .nfo file there and the name does not matter). The extension has to be .nfo (e.g. Hellboy (2004) English.DTS.1080p.x264.nfo).

Export .NFO files for all movies

 * First you need to have all the movies scanned into your Video Library.
 * Once this is done you’ll need to export your library as a series of separate .NFO files. This can be done by going to Settings > Video > Library and choosing Export Library. Make sure you choose the separate files option, and a bunch of .NFO files (one for every movie) will be dumped to the directories the movies are stored in.


 * Once you have the .NFO you'll need to open it for all the movies in the series and add some info to them.

NFO Examples
Below are the different sections explained on how to create specific nfo files for them.


 * Movies
 * Movie sets
 * Movie tags


 * TV Shows


 * TV Episodes


 * Music videos


 * Music

Importing library information from "My Movies" media management software
My Movies (www.mymovies.dk) is an online database for profiling DVD-Video movies. My Movies saves an XML file and a poster cover image which with this patch will get scanned by XBMC in the same way as XBMC's own XML formatted NFO files are scanned/scraped.

XBMC has the ability to get the import movie library information from "My Movies" via the mymovies.xml files that it generates, these mymovies.xml are checked after the movie.nfo file.