# Quality Profiles > Scoring real releases against a quality profile. A page from the Profilarr documentation by https://github.com/santiagosayshey, last updated 2026-10-01 (commit: https://github.com/Dictionarry-Hub/profilarr.com/commit/92a5c54a149c3c94cd38a300e6082dc70a368f93). Web version: https://profilarr.com/test/quality-profiles. Edit on GitHub: https://github.com/Dictionarry-Hub/profilarr.com/edit/develop/src/routes/(docs)/test/quality-profiles/+page.svx A custom format test asks whether one release matches one format. A quality profile test asks a different question: when every custom format in a profile scores the same set of releases, do they come out in the order you want? That question has no pass or fail. You don't tell Profilarr what score a release should get. Instead you save the releases you care about, pick a profile, and read the scores. When you change a custom format or a score, you come back to the same releases and check the order still makes sense. > **Info:** Think of a quality profile test as a search simulation. Instead of editing, syncing, and running an interactive search for every score change, you run the search once and keep its releases. Profilarr scores them against your latest changes straight away. ## Adding Movies and Series Rather than storing tests under each quality profile, Profilarr stores them under the movies and series whose releases you're testing. Every profile in the database can score the same releases, so you can switch between profiles and see how each one ranks the same search. Open **Testing** under **Quality Profiles**. Each linked database has its own tab. Press **Add Entity** (`+`), search TMDB for a movie or series, and select as many results as you like. Each one becomes a row you can add releases to. ![Profilarr's Add Test Entity dialog over the Testing page, with a TMDB search for Blade Runner. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Blade Runner (1982) are checked as movies, Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021) is an unchecked TV series, and both movies are listed under Selected (2) above the Add button.](https://profilarr.com/images/docs_qp_testing_add[style=light].png) Adding Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 from a TMDB search. > **Info:** Profilarr looks movies and series up on TMDB, so it needs a [TMDB token](https://www.themoviedb.org/settings/api) before you can add any. Open **Settings > General**, and paste your **API Read Access Token** (not the API key) from your TMDB account into **TMDB Configuration**. Press **Test** to check it works. ## Adding Releases Each movie or series has two ways to add releases. | Method | How it works | | --- | --- | | Import releases | Runs an interactive search in one of your Arr instances, the same search you'd run from Radarr or Sonarr, and lets you pick which results to keep. Choose the instance and the matching item in its library. For a series, you then choose a season, and Profilarr keeps only the season packs from that search. | | Add release | Lets you type one in by hand: a release title, and optionally its size, languages, indexers, and flags. Use it for a release you've seen but can't find in a search right now, or one you've written to test a single format. | > **Info:** Import releases searches from an item in your Radarr or Sonarr library, so add the movie or series there first. The search goes out to your indexers and can take a while. Each imported release keeps the size, indexers, languages, and flags its indexers reported, and near-identical releases are merged into one. ![Profilarr's Add Test Release dialog for Blade Runner, with the release title Blade.Runner.1982.The.Final.Cut.1080p.BluRay.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.x264-GROUP, a size of 16.4 GB, English as the language, ExampleIndexer as the indexer, and freeleech as the flag.](https://profilarr.com/images/docs_qp_testing_release[style=light].png) A Blade Runner release added by hand, with its size, language, indexer, and flag. > **Tip:** Search simulations double as documentation. Databases can publish them and users can see how its profiles rank real releases! ## Simulating a Search Start by choosing the profile you want to test from the profile menu (sliders icon). When you expand a movie or series, Profilarr scores each of its releases in three steps: 1. It runs the release title through the parser. 2. It checks the parsed release against every custom format in the database. 3. Each matched format is then added together to give a final score. Here are the same four Blade Runner releases scored against two profiles: ![Blade Runner expanded on the Testing page with the 1080p Quality HDR profile selected, showing four releases of The Final Cut: the DON release at 907,600, the LoRD PROPER release at 885,606, the NCmt release at 883,300, and the hand-added GROUP release at 701,000. Each release is expanded to show its parsed source, resolution, group, edition, and languages, and its matched custom formats with their scores.](https://profilarr.com/images/docs_qp_testing_1080p_quality_hdr[style=light].png) The DON release scores highest against `1080p Quality HDR`. ![The same four Blade Runner releases with the 1080p Quality profile selected: the LoRD PROPER release at 885,606, the NCmt release at 883,300, the hand-added GROUP release at 701,000, and the DON release last at -1,113,398, where HDR and x265 each score -999,999.](https://profilarr.com/images/docs_qp_testing_1080p_quality[style=light].png) Against `1080p Quality`, HDR and x265 push the same DON release to the bottom. > **Info:** A custom format is often scored by more than one profile, so changing it affects all of them. Since your test releases aren't tied to a profile, you can make the change once, then switch between the profiles that use it and check how each one ranks the same releases. ### Quick Parse Press **Quick Parse** (flask icon) to score a single title without saving it. Paste the title, choose whether it's a movie or a series, and choose a profile. Profilarr shows the same breakdown as an expanded release. Use it to check a title you've just seen in Radarr or Sonarr before deciding whether it's worth keeping as a test. ## Next - [Deploy](https://profilarr.com/deploy): Getting your configuration into Radarr and Sonarr. - [Deploy: Upgrades](https://profilarr.com/deploy/upgrades): Automatically searching for better releases. --- Index of this site's Markdown pages: https://profilarr.com/llms.txt