Everything that has happened to the media files: uploads, renames, deletions and the rest.
iAbout this page›
Two things write here. AmeriBrit Transfer reports what it did, and Samba reports what actually touched the share. The second is what catches somebody who mapped the drive and never opened the app.
A row marked samba came from the share itself and is the harder of the two to fool — it is written whether or not anybody used the app. A row marked app knows more: who, over what transport, and what they meant to do. Records are kept for ninety days.
Share accounts
One per person, created the first time they open AmeriBrit Transfer. The panel holds no password — it mints a new one on every sign-in, which is what makes the old one useless.
Not loaded{{ accountsWhy }}
Nobody has one yet. An account appears here the first time somebody with the files.upload permission opens the app.
Revoking disables the Samba account and stops the panel issuing it any more passwords. It does not delete the unix user behind it, because that would leave every file that person uploaded owned by a number that no longer means anything. Restoring takes effect the next time they open the app, which is when a fresh password is minted.
AmeriBrit Transfer
How files get onto the server
Everything that happens between choosing files in AmeriBrit Transfer and them showing up in Jellyfin — and why it works the way it does. The moving pictures loop; they show the same thing the app does, just faster.
01
Getting files in
There are three ways, and they all lead to the same upload window, where you can check everything before a single byte is sent.
Upload files opens the normal Windows file picker. Hold Ctrl to pick several, or Shift to pick a whole run of them.
Drag files onto the app window. While you drag, a box tells you which folder they will go into. Let go, and they are added to the upload window.
Drag a whole folder — a Season 03 folder, say. The app makes Season 03 inside the folder you have open and puts every file into it. If there is already a Season 03, the files are added to it. Empty folders and Windows clutter like Thumbs.db are left out — and so is anything still downloading, such as a file ending in .crdownload or .part, so a half-finished download can't be sent by mistake.
One drop takes up to 10,000 files. Drop more than that — a whole drive, say — and the app tells you it has taken only the first 10,000, so nothing is quietly left behind.
This computer
Season 03
3 files
The Middle
Season 01
Season 02
Season 03
S03E01.mkv
S03E02.mkv
S03E03.mkv
A dropped folder keeps its shape.
02
Where each file goes
The app reads each file's name, then looks for that show or film on all five drives — so a new episode joins its show where it already is, on the drive it is already on, in the season folder it already has. Every suggestion can be changed with Browse before you start — nothing moves until you press Start upload.
Recognised The name clearly says what it is — a TV episode like The Middle - S06E06.mkv, or a film with its year — and it was found on the drives. It goes into that show's own folder and season. A line underneath says which drive, and whether a new season folder will be made for it.
New show The name is clear, but that show isn't on any drive yet. It is not put into a new folder automatically: a slightly different spelling — "Law and Order SVU" for "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" — would otherwise quietly create a second copy of a show that's already there. Until you choose, it goes to the folder you have open. If it really is a new show, press Create it to use the new folder instead.
Unsure The name does not say enough, like IMG_2291.mp4. It is pointed at the folder you have open, so nothing lands in a folder the app made up.
From folder Part of a dragged folder. It goes where it sat in that folder, under the folder you dropped it on.
The Middle - S06E06 - The Play.mkv
show · The Middleseason · 06episode · 06
→ Shows / The Middle / Season 06Recognised
IMG_2291.mp4 → the folder you have open Unsure
The name is the clue. When it is not a clear one, the app does not guess.
03
One file at a time
Files go up in order, one after another — never several at once. That is on purpose. The media drives are spinning hard drives, and asking one to write several files at the same moment is slower overall, and can make a film stutter for anyone watching it at the time.
Grey is waiting its turn, gold is sending, green is done.
If one file fails, the next one still starts. One problem never stops the rest of the batch.
Room is checked before anything is sent. The sidebar shows how much space is left on each drive — in orange once it is under 50 GB — and a batch that will not fit is refused the moment you press Start upload, instead of failing at the end of a long upload. A file that still has no folder chosen is caught the same way.
S06E01.mkv
S06E02.mkv
S06E03.mkv
each one finishes before the next begins
04
No half-finished files
While a file is on its way, it is saved under a hidden temporary name — one that starts with a dot and ends in .abpart. Only when the very last byte has arrived is it renamed to its real name, in a single instant step.
Jellyfin never sees a file that is still arriving, so you never end up with a broken episode that has no length or picture in the library.
Before that rename, the app checks that every byte arrived. If the laptop goes to sleep or the Wi-Fi drops part-way, nothing is saved under the real name, the library is left exactly as it was, and you are told how much got there — just upload it again.
The same check catches a file that changes while it is being sent, such as a download that hadn't quite finished. It is refused rather than saved half-done.
In the Movies folder
.Film (2020).mkv.abpartFilm (2020).mkv
Jellyfin: nothing to see yetJellyfin: the film can now be found ✓
hidden while arriving · real name only when complete
05
Nothing gets overwritten
If the folder already has a file with exactly the same name, that one file is not uploaded. The app never replaces a file that is already there — a replaced film does not go to the trash, it is simply gone, so the app will not do it.
Every other file in the batch carries on as normal.
When the batch finishes, the app lists the files that were not uploaded, and why.
Two people uploading the same file at once can't overwrite each other either. Whichever finishes second is not saved, and whatever arrived first stays. If the same file is still on its way from another computer, the second upload is told to wait for it.
To replace a file on purpose, delete the old one first — it goes to the trash, so it can still be got back — then upload the new one.
S02E11.mkv
S02E12.mkv
waitingalready in this folder — not uploaded
S02E13.mkv
2 uploaded · 1 not uploaded: S02E12.mkv is already there
06
Watching it happen
Each file shows how far along it is, and the top of the upload window adds it all up for the whole batch.
How far
41% · 1.9 GB of 4.7 GB
How fast
98 MB/s (822 Mbps)
How long
29 s left
The speed is shown two ways.MB/s is megabytes a second — the same units as the file sizes beside it, so you can work out the wait in your head. Mbps is megabits a second — the unit internet plans and speed tests use, so you can compare it with your connection. They are not just eight apart: 98 MB/s is about 822 Mbps.
Time left is worked out from the speed right now, so it settles down after the first few seconds.
Hide closes the upload window, but the upload keeps going. The bar at the top of the app keeps showing the progress — click it to bring the window back — and files heading into the folder you have open appear in it with their own progress bar.
One batch at a time. Files added while a batch is running have to wait until it finishes. Stop ends a batch part-way: files that have finished stay, the one being sent is not saved under any name, and the rest are not sent. Sign out waits too: it is greyed out until the batch has finished, so an upload never carries on with nobody signed in.
07
When it is finished
The upload window closes and the folder you are looking at refreshes, so the new files are there.
If anything was not uploaded, the reason is shown in the status line at the top of the app, in plain words — the drive is full, the file is open in another program, the name is too long — rather than a vague "could not reach".
The Transfers view in the app's sidebar lists every file sent since the app was opened, batch by batch — and for any file that did not arrive, the reason, rather than one line for the whole batch.
The app offers to ask Jellyfin to look at just the folders that received files. It asks rather than doing it automatically, because a burst of uploads turning into a burst of library scans is something anyone watching a film would notice.
08
Deleting, and getting things back
Deleting never destroys anything straight away. The file moves into a hidden trash folder on the same drive — which is why even a huge film is deleted instantly.
The Trash view in the app lists what was deleted and when. Put back returns a file exactly where it came from — the same show, the same season.
Choosing several at once works as it does in Windows, in the file list and in the trash: click one, Shift-click another to take everything in between, Ctrl-click to add or remove one, or press Ctrl+A for all of them. A deleted season comes back in two clicks.
The trash list shows the most recent 2,000 deletions from each drive. If a drive has more, the status line says so.
Files deleted together from the same folder — a whole season, say — show as one row, so they go back in one click.
Anything left in the trash for 30 days is removed for good, automatically.
A restored file is back on the drive straight away, but Jellyfin needs to look at that folder again before it shows up in the library.
09
File names
Names are shown exactly as they are on the server — including ones with a colon, like NCIS: Los Angeles, which Windows normally cannot display.
A new name you type — for a rename or a new folder — cannot contain \ / : * ? " < > |, or end with a space or a dot. Windows does not allow those, and they break other tools such as FileZilla.
A name can be at most 255 bytes, because that is what the drives count. An English letter is one byte, but a Japanese character is three — so a long title in another alphabet can be refused while still looking short. Names the app keeps for its own files, like .abtrash, can't be used either.
10
Your own share account
The first time you open the app, you get your own account on the media server. You never see or type its password: a brand new one is made every time you sign in, which makes any old one useless.
Opening the app on a second computer gives you a new password, which stops the first computer's working. The first computer notices the next time it touches a file, fetches a fresh one and carries on — no restart needed.
If the panel can't be reached when the app opens — the Wi-Fi not up yet after waking, say — you stay signed in. The app says so and tries again every 15 seconds.
What you can do is set in the panel. Uploading and making folders is one permission; renaming, deleting and putting back is another. Buttons your account can't use are greyed out — and the app and the media server both refuse the action as well, so it can't be done some other way.
At home or away. At home the app talks to the drives directly. Before it sends your password to anything, it checks that the machine at the house address really is the media server — so on somebody else's network it takes the away route instead. Away, it goes over the internet with a pass that lasts a few minutes and renews itself, so the app can be left open all day.
Everything you upload, rename or delete is recorded under your name — by the app, and when you are away by the media server as well. That record is what this page shows, and the Share accounts table below it is where an account can be switched off.
11
Keeping the app up to date
Before you sign in, the app checks for a newer version. If there is one, it installs it and reopens by itself. Updates are not optional — the panel will not work with an out-of-date copy.
The version you are running is shown at the bottom of the app's sidebar, next to a Check for updates button.
An update never interrupts an upload. If one comes out part-way through a batch, it installs as soon as the batch has finished.
If an update can't be installed, or the update server can't be reached, that screen offers Download the installer. Running it brings the app up to date by hand.
12
Reading this page
The same action can appear twice: once reported by the app, marked app, and once recorded by the media server itself, marked samba at home or service when you are away. Those records are written even when someone skips the app entirely — copying files onto the drives in Windows, or talking to the media server directly.
The colours: green for uploads, orange for renames, red for deletions.