Guides

Every screenshot below is of the app actually running; the few drawn panels copy its real labels. If a screen looks slightly different on your machine it is because your library is different, not because the guide is out of date.

Start with your first scan Something gone wrong?

CtrlK The command palette, recorded from the running app.

1. Getting started

RollMyLibrary opens on the launcher. Two tools share one window, and you can move between them at any time with the Home button or Ctrl+1 / Ctrl+2.

The RollMyLibrary launcher showing the Series Organiser and Video Randomizer cards
The launcher. Each card shows live counts once you have scanned a library.

Point it at your videos

  1. Open the Video RandomizerIt is the half of the app that builds and browses the library.
  2. Click Rescan FoldersOr Scan Folder the first time. Then pick the folder your videos live in.
  3. Wait for the scanIt reads filenames and sizes — it does not copy, move or modify anything.

Ctrl1Series Organiser

Ctrl2Video Randomizer

A first scan of a large library takes a while. It is reading the disk, not uploading anything: your library never leaves your PC.

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2. The Randomizer

This is the “I have 4,000 files and no idea what to watch” tool.

The Video Randomizer: Pick Random and Play, Skip and Spin at the top left, the library list in the middle and the details pane on the right

Pick something

  • Pick Random & Play — chooses one and launches it.
  • Spin — the roulette, for when you want to watch it choose.
  • Skip — not that one; pick again.

The five modes

Every mode picks at random. What changes is the weighting behind it.

The five Randomizer modes and what each one favours
ModeWhat it favours
SurpriseA lively mix of everything, with a little chaos — the default.
DiscoveryLeans hard toward videos you have never watched.
FavouritesMostly your favourites — unseen ones first.
RediscoverResurfaces things you watched a long time ago.
PureFlat random, no weighting at all.
A video selected, with the details pane showing thumbnail, play count and tags

The details pane

Selecting a row is how you check what a file actually is before committing an evening to it — the thumbnail, how many times you have played it, when you last did, which folder it came from and every tag on it.

Select any row and the right-hand pane fills in: thumbnail, plays, last watched, folder and tags.

Queues, playlists and the command palette

  • Up Next builds a queue so you are not choosing again in 40 minutes.
  • Build Playlist saves a set you can come back to.

CtrlK opens the command palette — the fastest route to anything in the app.

The command palette open over the Randomizer
The command palette. Start typing and it filters; it remembers what you use most.
The stats dashboard
What you actually watch, as opposed to what you have been collecting.

Stats

The dashboard is the honest version of your collection. Most people are wrong about their own library, and this is the screen that settles it.

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3. The Series Organiser

Point it at a messy folder and it works out which files belong together, then files them into folders — after showing you exactly what it intends to do.

A real scan of a folder of loose files. Two series have enough episodes to file; three Northern Lights files and a stray phone clip stay as Unknown.

Five steps, and nothing moves until the last one

  1. Select FolderChoose the messy folder.
  2. ScanIt reads every filename and groups them.
  3. ReviewCheck the Review tab for anything it is unsure about.
  4. Build PlanSee every move it proposes, before any of them happen.
  5. Execute PlanDo it. Undo Last reverses the whole run.

It moves files. Read the plan.

Build Plan is not a formality — it is the last point at which nothing has happened yet. There is an undo, but the plan is easier.

Scan results showing detected series names and confidence scores
Each row shows the file, the raw token it found, the folder name it proposes, and how sure it is.

Reading the scan

Nothing has happened to your files at this point. The scan is a proposal: one row per file, the series name it believes that file belongs to, and how confident it is in the guess.

Why some files say “Unknown”

A folder is only created when 4 or more files share the same series name. One-offs and pairs are deliberately left where they are, so a single stray episode never spawns its own folder. In the scan above, the three Northern Lights files are one short, and random clip from phone.mp4 is alone, so both stay put.

If you want a small group filed anyway, right-click it and correct the folder name by hand.

Confidence scores

What each confidence score band means
ScoreMeaning
0.85 – 0.98Very high. A clear pattern was recognised.
0.60 – 0.84High. Several files agree on the name.
0.35 – 0.59Moderate. Not flagged, but worth a glance in the plan before executing.
Below 0.35Low. Flagged for review, or left in place entirely.

Anything under 0.35 is flagged, not hidden. The Organiser would rather ask than guess wrong with your files.

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4. Tags and Smart Views

Tags are yours to invent. Select one or more videos, click Tag…, and type. A Smart View then saves a filter as if it were a folder — “unwatched, tagged action, added this year” — and keeps itself up to date as your library changes.

  1. Tag a handful of videos.
  2. In the sidebar, under SMART VIEWS, click + New.
  3. Build the filter and name it.
The Smart View builder: a name, five tags cycled between any-of and exclude, watched and favourite filters, and a live match count

The duplicate finder compares content rather than filenames, so two copies of the same video with different names are still caught.

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5. Online identification — what works, and what needs a key

The Organiser can look a file up online and fill in proper titles, studios, performers and dates. Which database it asks depends on what the file looks like, and one of them needs a free key from you.

Which database each kind of content is identified against, and what setup it needs
ContentDatabase usedSetup needed
Adult scenesThePornDB None. Works the moment you install.
MoviesTMDB (themoviedb.org) Your own free TMDB key.
TV seriesTMDB Your own free TMDB key.
IMDb ratingsOMDb (omdbapi.com) None. A key ships with the app.

Why not just use IMDb?

IMDb has no free public API — there is nothing to plug into. TMDB is the practical route: it has excellent movie and TV coverage and returns the IMDb ID for most titles, so the app can still link you straight to the IMDb page. If you specifically want the IMDb rating, OMDb supplies it.

Adding your TMDB key — about two minutes, free

The app has a window that walks you through it. In the Series Organiser, click Movie/TV setup in the button bar (it sits next to Identify online).

  1. Sign upClick the button in step 1. It opens themoviedb.org/signup. Skip it if you already have an account.
  2. API settingsThe button in step 2 takes you straight to Settings → API. Request a key and choose Developer; personal use is fine, and “for my own video library” is a perfectly good answer to what it asks.
  3. Copy the right oneYou want the value labelled API Key (v3 auth) — a long string of letters and numbers. Not the “API Read Access Token”, which is much longer and starts with eyJ. That is the one people pick by mistake.
  4. Test, then SavePaste it into the box, click Test key, then Save.
The Movie and TV identification setup window, showing four numbered steps, Sign up and API settings buttons, a key field, and Test key / Save buttons
The setup window. The two green buttons open the right TMDB pages for you — no hunting through the site.

Test key tells you straight away whether it works.

A green tick means TMDB accepted it. A red cross means it did not — usually the Read Access Token pasted by mistake, or a key that has not finished activating on TMDB's side.

You can still press Save without testing — useful if you are offline — and the window will say plainly that the key was saved but not verified.

Your key is stored on your own PC, in %USERPROFILE%\.video_toolkit\ui.json, and is only ever sent to TMDB. It is not shared with us and it does not travel with your licence.

Until you add one, movies and TV are simply skipped when you click Identify online — adult scenes are still identified, because that database is built in. Nothing breaks; you just get no result for those files, and the app will offer to open this window for you.

IMDb ratings come along automatically — a shared OMDb key ships with the app, so there is no second signup. That key has a daily ceiling across all users, so if ratings stop appearing, grab your own free one at omdbapi.com and paste it into the OMDb box. Yours always takes priority.

Identification is not the same as organising.

The Organiser sorts files into folders by reading filenames — that needs no internet and no keys. Online identification is a separate, optional step that enriches what it found with proper titles and cast.

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6. Activating your licence key

Bought a licence after trying RollMyLibrary Free? Your key goes into the full app, which you download with the code emailed to you — the free portable .exe has no activation screen because it never needed one. The full app asks for your key the first time you open it: the activation window appears before the main window.

Paste the key, tick the terms box, click Activate. It takes a second and needs internet once.

Where the key goes

  1. Open the full appThe activation window appears straight away.
  2. Paste your licence keyRML-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX — four blocks.
  3. Accept the termsTick I have read and accept the Terms.
  4. ActivateThe window closes and the app opens, licensed.

Two different codes arrive in your email. They are not interchangeable.

Download code

RML-XXXX-XXXX

Two blocks. Gets you the installer from the website.

Licence key

RML-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

Four blocks. Unlocks the app.

“That licence key was not found” almost always means the download code was pasted in by mistake. Count the blocks.

One key covers 3 machines. Moving to a new PC? Deactivate the old one from inside the app to free a seat. If the old machine is dead or wiped, open a support ticket and we will free it for you.

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7. When something goes wrong

“That licence key was not found”

Check you are using the four-block licence key, not the two-block download code. The alphabet excludes 0/O and 1/I on purpose — copy and paste rather than typing.

“The activation server is temporarily unavailable”

That is our end, not yours, and your key is fine. Wait a few minutes and try again. An already-activated copy keeps working regardless — the app verifies your licence locally and only re-checks occasionally.

The free edition says a feature needs the full version

That is not a fault. RollMyLibrary Free catalogues: it scans your folders, builds the library and lets you browse, search, filter and sort it, so you can see it handle your own files before paying. Everything you then do with that library is the paid app — playing a video at all, the weighted random picker, Roulette, playlists, tags, Smart Views, Up Next, the duplicate finder, the stats dashboard, thumbnails and previews, and the whole Series Organiser. Nothing expires and nothing nags you on a timer; you can keep the free edition for as long as you want. Side-by-side comparison.

I bought a licence — do I have to import my library again?

No. Both builds keep the library in the same place (%USERPROFILE%\.video_randomizer\library.json), so the full app opens with your videos, folders, favourites, watched marks and tags already there. No second scan.

The free copy is a portable .exe and does not uninstall itself. Delete it once you are happy, or keep both — they read the same library either way.

I do not use VLC — can I use my own player?

Yes. Settings → Randomizer → Media player lists VLC, MPC-HC / MPC-BE, PotPlayer, mpv, and System default player — that last one just uses whatever Windows already opens video files with, so it needs nothing installed and nothing configured. If yours is not on the list, choose Another player and point it at the .exe.

Two things worth knowing. The VLC Fast Launch section only appears when VLC is selected, because those switches are VLC's own and mean nothing to the others. And for Play all, players that cannot accept a list of files on the command line are handed a temporary .m3u playlist instead — otherwise they would open the first video, drop the rest, and look like they had worked.

No thumbnails or hover previews

Those need ffmpeg. The installer can fetch it for you (optional, about 40 MB); if you skipped that, the app offers a Download automatically button the first time you ask for thumbnails or previews. Without ffmpeg the rest of the app still works, you just lose previews.

Nothing here fixed it

Open a ticket in our Discord or email support@rollmylibrary.com. Include what you were doing, the exact error text, and your Windows version.

Never include your licence key.

Open a ticket on Discord Email support

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See it scan your actual library.

RollMyLibrary Free is a portable download with no licence key and no time limit. The full app is £9.99 once, not a subscription.

RollMyLibrary FreeA single portable .exe for Windows 10 / 11

Download the free edition Buy — £9.99 once
A scanned library in RollMyLibrary: every video listed with its name, path, when it was last watched and its status, and a details pane for the selected video