FileBot started charging rent to rename files — so I built a free one
Every media server tells the same little lie: 'just point me at your files.' Then you point it at a folder full of M.P.G.S01E01.1080p.FINAL.v2.actuallyfinal.mkv and it shrugs. No poster, no title, no episode name — just a sad column of filenames. The fix has always been the same chore: rename everything into the tidy layout that Plex, Emby and Jellyfin actually understand.
For years I did that with FileBot. It's a capable tool. But the basic job — look a title up and rename the file — slowly drifted behind a paywall: the kind of license you have to keep renewing to keep using. One evening I was sorting a season of TV and got the prompt again, asking me to pay once more for the privilege of putting text in the right order. That was the moment. Renaming files is not a subscription.
Renaming is a lookup and some string formatting
That's genuinely the whole trick. Read the messy filename, work out the show or movie, ask a database for the real title and episode names, and write them back in the shape your server wants. The data is free — TMDB gives it away. There's no ongoing cost to rename a file, so there shouldn't be an ongoing bill. So I built the version I actually wanted: free, native, and dead simple.
Wicked Sorted Mate: right-click, sorted
It installs two actions into the Finder right-click menu — no app to keep open, no window to babysit. Point it at a folder of TV or movies and it renames everything into clean Emby / Jellyfin / Plex naming, posters and titles and all. The clever bit: it reads the folder name as well as the files, so a cryptic M.P.G.S01E01 sitting in a folder called Maximum.Pleasure.Guaranteed still sorts correctly, and werewolves.sub.2027.mkv becomes Werewolves on a Submarine (2027).
- Right-click any folder → renamed for Emby, Jellyfin & Plex
- Reads folder names too, so cryptic filenames still sort right
- Free TMDB lookups for correct titles and episode names
- Shows a preview first — and the last run can be undone
The part FileBot never did: fetch the extras
Here's where it goes further. A second right-click action — Fetch Extras — searches YouTube for the bonus material around a title: behind-the-scenes, making-of, interviews, deleted scenes, featurettes. It drops the clips straight into the exact extras subfolders Emby and Plex recognise, so your film doesn't just have a clean name, it has a 'Behind the Scenes' tab full of content, the way a Blu-ray would. It quietly sets up its own downloader the first time you use it, so there's nothing to install or configure.
Free, local, and that's the entire point
Your files never leave your Mac. There's no account, no cloud round-trip, and no license to renew next year. The only thing it asks for is a free TMDB key, which you paste once into a small Settings window. The installer is signed and notarised by Apple, so there's no scary 'unidentified developer' wall — it just installs and works.
How to start
Wicked Sorted Mate now ships inside Disko-Tools — our free bundle of right-click tools for photos and video. Download the installer from the DISKO Labs page, tick the Wicked Sorted Mate option, and run it. A Settings window opens so you can paste your free TMDB key. Then right-click any messy folder of TV or movies and choose WSM - Rename for Emby/Plex, or WSM - Fetch Extras to pull the bonus features. No subscription, no cloud, no homework. (You also get eight more Quick Actions in the same installer — image optimization, AI upscaling, background removal, MP4 and GIF conversion — because free tools travel in packs.)
Renaming files is not a subscription feature. So now it isn't one.