Plex Not Showing Album Art? Fix Your Music Library Artwork
If your Plex music library shows grey placeholders instead of album covers, you are not alone. This is one of the most common Plex music complaints — and it is almost always fixable once you understand how Plex decides which artwork to show.
How Plex picks album art (the part nobody explains)
Plex does not simply read the art from your files. When it scans a music library, it works through a priority list:
- Online match first. Plex tries to identify each album against its online music databases and download the “official” artwork.
- Local files second. If the Local Media Assets agent is enabled and placed at the top of the agent list, Plex will use artwork it finds next to or inside your files.
- Embedded tags. If your music library’s Advanced settings have Use embedded tags (newer versions call it Prefer local metadata) turned on, Plex reads the artwork embedded in each file’s tags.
The key insight: Plex prefers its online match over your files by default. When the online match is wrong or missing — very common with obscure releases, self-published music, bootlegs, and regional editions — you get the wrong cover or no cover at all, even if your files are perfectly tagged.
Fix it in 4 steps
- Get the artwork into your files. The most reliable method: embed the cover into every track of the album (ID3v2 tag for MP3, Vorbis comment for FLAC). See our embedding guide. Alternative: place a
folder.jpgorcover.jpgin the album folder — Plex treats the two names as interchangeable for album art. - Turn on “Use embedded tags” / “Prefer local metadata”. In Plex, edit your music library, open the Advanced tab, and enable the option that tells Plex to prefer your files’ embedded tags over online data. (The exact label varies by Plex version.)
- Move Local Media Assets to the top. Go to Settings → Server → Agents → Albums and drag Local Media Assets to the top of the list. This tells Plex to check your local artwork before downloading anything.
- Refresh the library. On the music library, choose Scan Library Files, then on a stubborn album use Refresh Metadata. If an album still refuses, remove it from the library, empty trash / clean bundles, rescan, then re-add it (the classic “Plex Dance”).
Embedded art vs. folder.jpg — which is better for Plex?
| What matters | Embedded in files | folder.jpg / cover.jpg |
|---|---|---|
| Survives a library rebuild | Yes — art is inside the file | Yes, as long as the folder stays |
| Works if you move files to a new server | Yes | Only if you move the folder too |
| Per-track vs per-album | Every track carries it | One image for the whole folder |
| Effort | Batch-embed once with Mp3tag | Drop one file per album |
Verdict: embedding is the set-and-forget option. It survives server moves, rebuilds, and re-scans — which is exactly when Plex users lose their artwork. folder.jpg is a fine quick fix for a handful of albums.
Honest limitations (don’t waste your time)
- Obscure and self-released music: Plex’s online databases often have no entry for these. Local embedding is not a workaround here — it is the only reliable solution.
- Chromecast audio artwork: album art frequently does not display when casting audio from Plex to Chromecast. This is a long-standing Plex-side limitation; no tagging trick reliably fixes it.
- Artist images: Plex pulls artist photos from online sources. You can place an
artist-poster.jpgin the artist folder with Local Media Assets enabled, but results vary.
Where to get the artwork
Use Album Art Downloader to batch-find covers for your whole library, or our online tool for single albums. Not sure which source is best? See where to find high-resolution album covers.
Frequently asked questions