Filebot is a tool that helps you organize and rename movie, anime, and TV files. It is also great for fetching subtitles for movies and TV shows you have downloaded.
It pulls TV titles from movie databases automatically, and you can look up subtitles from OpenSubtitles.
However, Filebot is not the only file renamer or media organizer you can use. Perhaps you don’t like the interface, don’t want to pay $20 for a Filebot license, are looking for a tool that is more geared for anime, or want something that checks for new episodes to torrent and integrates with Ombi.
Regardless of why you are looking for a Filebot alternative, this article is for you. Today, I will go over the 18 best free and paid Filebot alternatives for TVs, movies, anime, music, and more.
Best Filebot Alternatives
1. TV Rename
TV Rename is a tool that you can use to get your TV shows in order. The tool will automatically clean up and fix names of TV shows to make them work with hubs like Kodi.
In addition, TV Rename is great for organizing your downloaded TV shows in your media library.
It will automatically copy files from monitored folders to your Media Library, download TV posters for the shows you have, automatically generate TV show metadata, and more.
If you are missing episodes from your TV shows, it will search for the ones you are missing, list them, and create a web search, so you can find them.
If the TV series is not yet over, it will help you track how long you will have to wait until new episodes come out.
The best part about TV Rename is the flexibility and functionality it gives you. You can set your preferences and make the tool do a lot of things automatically.
For example, you can have it add TV shows automatically and generate folders for the shows you have. It can also automatically clean up your media library and delete folders that are now empty.
Unlike Filebot, TV Rename is entirely free to use. It is open source, and you can modify it as you wish (as long as you do not plan on modifying it for commercial use, i.e. to sell it).
I found TV Rename to be a bit easier to use, with less of a learning curve. This is due to the fact that there is better documentation – you can use the Quick Start Guide or the Manual to figure out how to get started.
2. Media Center Master
Media Center Master is a software tool you can use to organize your media files. If you are looking for a tool with a free version as an alternative to Filebot, and you use Filebot mainly to organize your media files, Media Center Master is a great alternative.
The free version lets you do things like fetch metadata for movies and TV shows and comes with support for Plex, Kodi, and Emby.
There are some advantages to getting the premium version, but the free version will be sufficient for most.
Here are some benefits of going premium:
- The premium version will automatically extract video frames to use as thumbnails or screenshots; you can still do it with the free version, but it will not be automatic.
- The premium version can embed metadata directly to video.
- Multi-threaded parallel fetching is supported in the premium version.
Not only can you organize your media files with Media Center Master, but you can keep your shows updated when new episodes come out. Media Center Master supports automatic torrenting from sources on the web.
Also, Media Center Master supports adult films and movies, so if you have a lot of those and want to keep them organized, it is a great alternative to Filebot.
Media Center Master’s premium version is a bit more expensive for a one-time licensing fee than Filebot, but they do offer one year and one month licensing options.
The one month licensing option is very cheap – always check the Media Center Master pricing page for updated pricing information.
3. The Renamer
The Renamer is a simple and easy to use TV show and movie renamer.
One of the reasons you might choose The Renamer as an alternative to Filebot is that it is entirely free to use.
However, they do ask that you make a donation via PayPal, but that is up to you, and you can decide to donate just $5.
If you have a bunch of downloaded TV files that are disorganized, you can have The Renamer automatically rename them by simply dragging and dropping them into the tool.
The Renamer uses advanced logic to figure out the show name and episode and use that when creating a new file name.
If you do not want to drag and drop files, you can use the Fetch Folder tool to automatically scan all the files in a directory.
After a file is renamed, the tool will move it to the TV Show Archive.
In addition to renaming TV episode files, you can use The Renamer for movies. It will create a shortcut link to the IMDB movie page for each movie.
4. Ant Movie Catalog/Ant Renamer
Ant Movie Catalog is a tool you can use to manage your movies. You will want to use Ant Movie Catalog if you own movies in a CD or DVD format; it even works for VHS tapes.
There are also modifications of the Ant Movie Catalog designed to help you organize games and other things, such as audio CDs.
Ant Movie Catalog works with the Ant Renamer, which is a tool that helps you automatically rename files.
Both Ant Movie Catalog and Ant Renamer are 100 percent free to use and open source, unlike Filebot. However, you can make a donation if you would like to support the project.
5. Rename My TV Series 2
Rename My TV Series 2 is an update and improvement on the original Rename My TV Series tool. It is a tool that will help you rename your TV episodes.
The new version has a better interface and includes API support for The TVDB. There is also a 64-bit version for Mac users.
The maker of Rename My TV Series 1 & 2 is very clear about the purpose of the tool: To rename TV files that have odd or wrong names. It is not meant for downloading copyrighted films illegally.
Unlike Filebot, Rename My TV Series 2 is entirely free to use. However, you can support the owners by making a small donation on PayPal, or you can use their Amazon affiliate link to shop on Amazon – you won’t be spending any extra money, but you will still be giving the creator a bit of extra cash.
Other ways to support the project is by becoming a Patreon supporter or donating Bitcoin.
Rename My TV Series is for TV shows, not movies.
6. TV Renamer
Despite the name similarity to the first item on this list (TV Rename), this is a different project. However, it is also entirely free to use and open source, unlike Filebot.
It will take the ugly, convoluted, complicated file names you have downloaded and automatically clean them up and make them more presentable and easier to organize.
You can use the tool to rename many files at once, and you can also set parameters for how your files should be renamed.
There are both a 32-bit and a 64-bit version, for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
You can read more on the website or on the Github project page.
7. Shoko Anime
What if you only need a Filebot alternative for anime? Filebot is designed primarily for TV shows and movies, though it works with anime as well.
However, Shoko Anime is a file management tool that is designed only for anime. It compares file names against the centralized AniDB database to look up the correct file names for your anime.
It hashes each file in your library and compares it to what it can find in the AniDB database. This allows it to pull data from the database and populate your library with information about each anime file, including series information, characters, and related series.
It also helps you manage your anime files. For example, it can help you find missing anime files or remove duplicate anime files that are clogging your media library.
In addition, it integrates with various media players, allowing you to watch your anime easily.
8. Advanced Renamer
Advanced Renamer is a tool that allows you to configure renaming methods to automatically rename multiple files at once. There are 14 different methods that you can use to change names, attributes, and more.
If you are looking for an alternative to Filebot that goes beyond TV, movies, and anime, Advanced Renamer is a good tool to use.
It allows you to configure the tool to rename any kind of file – for example, it is great for renaming all of your photos and generating thumbnails for them.
Here are some things you can rename and organize with Advanced Renamer:
- GPS Data: If you have images that contain GPS data, the tool will be able to look up the coordinates and populate the city, country, and state data from a database of over 100,000 cities around the world.
- Music files: If your song files are all written wrong, you can use Advanced Renamer to fix their names.
- TV shows: The tool integrates with TV Maze to get data for TV shows.
- Video files: You can rename all video file names with new information and data, such as the resolution of each file.
Advanced Renamer is available in several languages. You can use it for free, unlike Filebot; it is free for both individuals and businesses, but you can purchase a license later if you want to support the project (though this is not required).
It is a great Filebot alternative if you want to organize your music files or images as well.
Advanced Renamer’s latest version was released a mere few months before this article was written. There is also an active support forum where you can discuss the tool and get help from other users.
9. Tiny Media Manager
Tiny Media Manager (or tinyMediaManager) is a Java/Swing media management tool that works with Kodi and Plex.
For movies, you can rename files automatically with data pulled from sources such as IMDB, HD Trailers, The Movie DB, and more and create NFO data to use with Kodi and Media Portal.
You can also organize movies into collections – this is the organizational aspect of the tool.
The same goes for TV series – you can pull data from The TV DB and IMDB.
Here is some other cool stuff you can do with Tiny Media Manager:
- Pull TV show and movie posters, logos, and screenshots from sources like The Movie DB and Fan Art TV
- Automatically scrape metadata for movies and shows from IMDB, Movie Meter, and more
- Manually edit metadata
- Download subtitles from Open Subtitles
- Get trailers from HD Trailers
- Create movie sets (this is for several movies that go together – for example, think of Mission Impossible starring Tom Cruise, Rambo starring Sylvester Stallone, Harry Potter, or the Dirty Harry series)
The best part about Tiny Media Manager is that you can download and use almost all of it for free, which makes it a great alternative to Filebot.
However, there are some limitations to the free version, such as a limit of 50 movies for the scraper.
10. MediaElch
If you use Kodi, you can use MediaElch as an alternative to Filebot. It is a media manager and a renaming tool.
You can generate NFO data for Kodi, download fan art automatically from Fan Art TV, and more. Some data sources you can scrape data from include The Movie DB, The TV DB, IMDB, and more.
In addition to TV shows and media, MediaElch supports music and concerts, making it a great alternative to Filebot if that is what you want to focus on. If you have a music collection, MediaElch can scrape data about your music files.
For music files, scraping sources include the Audio DB, All Music, and Discogs. You can also scrape music art from Fan Art TV.
“The Renamer” is Media Elch’s renaming tool. In addition to renaming the files in your directory, you can export all your data in HTML format.
11. Rename-It!
Rename-It! is a renaming tool you can use to rename multiple files at once. It is a good alternative to Filebot if you want to rename files that are not necessarily films, and you have an old operating system, such as Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, and Vista.
Keep in mind that if you have a newer operating system, you should not be using this software.
It is old and has not been updated for several years, so you may experience bugs and issues; but for older operating systems like Windows 95 and 98 (which are ancient!), there may not be many other options available.
You can use filters to search and replace file names, you can make all file names uppercase/lowercase, or you can crop out parts of file names to make them shorter and easier to organize.
This software is available on Github.
12. Sonarr
Sonarr is a bit different from Filebot; it is not really a renaming tool. Instead, it is best for you if you torrent and want to keep your series organized and up to date.
Sonarr will automatically track your favorite shows and download the newest episodes. You will see your upcoming releases in your calendar and, if you want, can manually search for missing episodes.
There is not much to Sonarr. It monitors RSS feeds for those torrenting from the web; it is a great alternative to Filebot if you torrent TV shows or movies and would like a way to keep your torrents organized and up to date.
Sonarr (and Radarr, a fork based on Sonarr) works with Ombi.
13. Lidarr
If you like Sonarr/Radarr, you will like Lidarr. It is basically the same thing, but it is made for music instead of TV shows.
It is made for Usenet and BitTorrent users who want to torrent music. It will monitor RSS feeds for new releases from your favorite artists – when it is alerted to new tracks, it will grab them, sort them, and rename them.
Lidarr is available from Github. If you are looking for a way to download and organize your torrented music, it is a great alternative to Filebot.
14. Bulk Rename Utility
Bulk Rename Utility is a Windows software tool for renaming multiple files with just one click. It offers you a lot of flexibility in terms of the configurations you can set up for renaming multiple files at once.
For example, you can:
- Remove all digits in your file names
- Remove all symbols
- Add the parent folder name to each individual file name
- Replace text
- Add appropriate dates to files
- Automatically number files to organize them
Here are some features of Bulk Rename Utility you might like:
- Rename multiple files at once
- Rename multiple folders at once
- Use Javascript to rename folders
- Use EXIF metadata to bulk edit file names
- Rename MP3 music files
- See a preview before renaming
- Change the creation timestamps of files
- Change the modification timestamps of files
- Use the portable version with no installation required
Bulk Rename Utility is a great alternative to Filebot because, unlike Filebot, it is entirely free to use. The exception is if you will be using it for a business or for commercial use, in which case you will be required to buy a license. A license is not required for personal or individual use.
For business use, pricing starts at around $50 per computer if you purchase more than six licenses. Always check the Bulk Rename Utility pricing page for updated pricing information.
The latest version (as of the time of this writing) was released in September 2020, so the software is being kept updated.
There is both a 32-bit and a 64-bit version. The software works with Windows 7, 8, and 10.
15. Ember Media Manager
Although Ember Media Manager was stopped for a while, new developers have taken it up, and it is now available on Github, with the most recent update (as of the time of this writing) made only 10 months ago.
You can scrape data, posters, and trailers for movies from IMDB. There is a forum you can follow for updates about the software, where you can get help from other users.
16. Media Companion
Media Companion is a media management tool that lets you catalog TV shows and movies and download data such as posters, fan art, and screenshots for each episode.
It offers full XBMC integration.
Here are some of the things you can do with Media Companion:
- Use the TVdb scraper for TV shows
- Download movie posters from IMDB
- Download fan art from Fan Art TV
- Download episode screenshots
- Set custom parameters to automatically rename folders in your library
- Download movie trailers from IMDB
- Download movie trailers from Yahoo
Media Companion is available on SourceForge. As of the time of this writing, the last update was only five days ago, which means the software is being updated regularly.
The main website of the project can be found here.
Unlike Filebot, Media Companion is entirely free to use. However, you can make a donation to keep the project going.
Wrapping It Up: What Is The Best Filebot Alternatives?
As you can see, there are a lot of free Filebot alternatives that are just as good. For simply renaming your files, the best alternative is TV Rename.
It is free and easy to use, and it does things like renaming your files when they are broken and ugly.
However, if you want a media manager, you can also use Media Center Master.
