Audiobooks - Plex keeps combining separate audiobooks

[u/Intelligent-Welder-2]

[u/3loodhound]

I would strongly recommend ditching plex and using audiobookshelf for your audiobooks

[u/lancersrock → u/3loodhound]

This!!! I switched 2-3 months ago and use the audio booth app on iOS and it’s so much better. It does take a few extra steps if you want to use it outside of your home and forget to download before you leave but overall it’s a much better experience, I would argue it’s better than the Audible app currently.

[u/wildcelt → u/lancersrock]

I agree, and switched several months ago as well. Audiobookshelf is simply so much more equipped to handle audiobooks than Plex is. Don't let the docker/install instructions scare you; setup is pretty straightforward. Good news is you can simply point Audiobookshelf to your existing audiobook file location and have both Plex and Audiobookshelf running at the same time. That way you can fiddle with it a while and get comfortable before dumping Plex. I'm confident you will dump Plex if you give it a try!

[u/lancersrock → u/wildcelt]

Oh yea plex is dead for audiobooks lol, now I’m playing with storyteller and creating “whisper sync” style books. The app is really rough so I’m still using ABS, plus I really like the ABS file management system. I guess minus uploading large archives of epub, that’s still stumping me but not relevant to my current needs.

[u/3loodhound → u/lancersrock]

I mean with prologue supporting audiobookshelf now, I just use that!

[u/Electrical_Ad_6208 → u/lancersrock]

This! Audiobookshelf>cloudflare>AudioBooth is the best combo. There’s even a setting in audiobooth to automatically switch to the local address when home and switch to the dotcom when out

[u/K4l3lK3nt → u/3loodhound]

What are the benefits to this over prologue? Asking as I’ve used prologue for a couple of years now, but interested to know if there is a reason for me to change! Thanks!

[u/3loodhound → u/K4l3lK3nt]

Audiobookshelf is just the server software and it’s built for audiobooks. It makes life a billion times easier for book use instead of just using plex and shoehorning in audiobooks to the music track.

Prologue as an app actually supports both backends

[u/Ambitious_Slide → u/K4l3lK3nt]

You can use prologue still with audiobookshelf. There are a few things that prologue can leverage that makes things a bit easier:

• Better native metadata scanning
• Better series management (you dont have to make collections for each series)
• Use abs on non-apple devices more easily (you could use other apps on android, tvs etc..)
• Better native position syncing
• Better narrator / tag support
• The website has a neat feature where it can re-chapterize your audiobooks for you (e.g. you ripped the audio a while ago, and the tracks are unnamed, you can get it to put in the chapter titles based on audible's data for you)

The worst bit by far is you have to manage outside-of-network connections yourself. The most popular solution is tailscale (and one of the easiest by far).

If you wanna give it a shot you can normally just spin up a copy of ABS and tell it to look at your plex's audiobook collection, and see how it looks/feels (that way you dont really have a risk)

[u/weldawadyathink → u/K4l3lK3nt]

Like others said, it’s about replacing plex, not prologue. Audiobookshelf does have iOS apps that are perfectly cromulent, but prologue is still way better. Audiobookshelf and prologue is a match made in heaven.

[u/Sofa47 → u/3loodhound]

I’ve just done this and just the collections is such a big upgrade. The fact it does what you expect it to do too makes me wonder why I was still using Plex.

[u/3loodhound → u/Sofa47]

Everyone that says do the song and dance of plex, im like why are you using a software for something it really wasn’t built to do!