Plex Music Timestamp Fixer for MacOS

A Python utility for repairing incorrect Date Added metadata in Plex music libraries. Plex occasionally applies future timestamps to tracks or their parent albums, which causes them to appear incorrectly in the Recently Added carousel even when they were added months or years earlier.

This tool reads the true file creation time from the filesystem and uses it to correct Plex’s internal metadata, ensuring Plex sorts music items accurately.

What it fixes

• Tracks with incorrect added_at dates
• Parent albums with inconsistent added_at and created_at values
• Future-dated items that show up incorrectly in “Recently Added”
• Tracks where Plex ignored the actual file timestamp during import

How it works

• Reads Plex’s metadata_items and media_parts tables
• Extracts the Date Created value from each media file
• Updates both:
  • added_at
  • created_at
• Writes changes safely using Plex’s bundled SQLite engine
• Supports:
  • Fixing a single track by ID
  • Bulk repair of all tracks with future added_at timestamps

Requirements

• macOS
• Plex Media Server installed locally
• Python 3
• Plex Media Server must be stopped before running
• Always back up com.plexapp.plugins.library.db before making changes

Usage

python3 update_plex_timestamp.py

Choose between:

1. Fix a single track by providing a metadata item ID
2. Bulk-fix all future-dated tracks and their parent albums

The script shows a full summary before applying changes and requires confirmation.