Rename for Plex and keep seeding

Renaming or moving a download breaks the torrent: your client can't find its files and stops seeding. Copying works but doubles the space. Hard links solve both.

Updated 2026-10-29

What a hard link is

On an NTFS drive, one file can have several names in different folders. Each name is a hard link to the same data on disk. Your torrent client keeps its name:

D:\Downloads\Dune.2021.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG\Dune.2021.1080p.WEBRip.x264-RARBG.mp4

and Plex gets a clean one, without a second copy:

D:\Plex\Movies\Dune (2021)\Dune (2021) 1080p H.264.mp4

No extra space. Windows Explorer shows the size twice, but the data is stored once.
Delete either name, the other stays. Removing the torrent and its files later leaves your library untouched.

Set it up in PathRenamer

Open Settings → Options.
Set When renaming to Hard-link the files (torrents keep seeding).
Preview and rename as usual. Downloads stay where they are; your library gets the new names.

In the Docker version, set PATHRENAMER_ACTION: hardlink, and map one folder that holds both your downloads and your media (for example /srv/data:/data): hard links can't cross from one mapped folder to another.

Undo removes only the library name; the download is never touched.

The one rule: same drive

Hard links only work within one NTFS drive. Keep downloads and library on the same drive, for example D:\Downloads and D:\Plex. When they're on different drives, on FAT32 or exFAT, or on a network share that can't hard-link, PathRenamer copies the file instead and tells you so.

Careful with tools that edit files in place. Both names share the same data, so a tool that changes the video file itself (for example one that edits MKV titles or tracks) changes the seeding copy too, and the torrent will fail its check. Renaming and moving are always safe.

Check that it worked

In Command Prompt, list every name of a file:

fsutil hardlink list "D:\Plex\Movies\Dune (2021)\Dune (2021) 1080p H.264.mp4"

Two lines, one in Downloads and one in your library, mean it's a hard link.

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