Because it isn’t a problem to be solved.
Once you have Plex Pass, you can just create free Plex accounts for your “managed users” (kids) and keep the logins secret to you, and then add them to your Plex Home (add PIN to your account).
Now they can have Discover and restrictions and all your Plex Pass goodies too.
See solved.
Create the free Plex account for your friend. Share your Plex server with his account. Now your friend has Discover. Solved.
Create free Plex accounts for your kids. Add them to your Plex Home. Now they have everything, and you can control restrictions by what you share from your Plex server. They will also have access to Discover, if you don’t turn it off in their own free Plex accounts.
Honestly, what everyone here needs to do is learn how Plex Home works.
Seriously, try it! Create one or more free Plex accounts (they are free after all), add them to your Plex Home. You can still restrict your kids to your Plex content, and they can still have Discover.
What I don’t understand is why you want to give “Managed Users” full access to everything on Discover but still treat them as “managed?” At that point they are just standard free users, who you share Plex with, like you can do with all your friends (except you know the logins for the accounts).
Create a free Plex account and add them to you Plex Home.
You need to understand the “Managed Users” are really “restricted accounts.” Everyone here, on this thread, wants unrestricted accounts for their kids but they (the parents) know the logins. Those are called free “Plex Accounts.” Add them to your “Plex Home” and keep the logins to yourself.
You need to understand how to use a forum and how to read people’s comment. Stating the known action, that people have already expressed why they don’t want to have to do, over and over again to different posts is useless and irritating. You have added nothing new to the thread and yet felt the need to say nothing many times in a spammy row. Next time, read the thread fully and then don’t reply if you aren’t adding something new that hasn’t been discussed.
Instead of insulting me, why not challenge the solution that I have strongly stated?
I doubt you are able and instead wish to continue to whine about a non-existent problem.
I’m quite interested in being shown that my solution is wrong instead of taking insults with no substance.
Your “solution” is not a solution, it is a workaround which requires creating multiple accounts for every single family member, and multiple counts for even myself.
I have myself as a managed user, with the primary profile requiring a pin. This prevent accidental and unwanted changes to the account and media server. Based off of comments in the forum, there is plenty of people who do the same exact thing as I do. I have a large family and really don’t feel like setting up multiple accounts for every single person when I could just add them as a managed user.
The feature that everyone is asking for in this thread is the solution, not creating new separate Plex accounts.
If you thinking pointing out that you not knowing how to use a forum reply button, nor knowing how to read the stated objections and requests were, then stating obvious information that has already been discussed as though you have some sort of insight (while belittling other users that they “just need to understand”), is “insulting you”, then don’t do those things and you won’t feel insulted when we point them out.
Thanks vertical-smile, I appreciate this type of reply. You are presenting what you see as the real issue in your case: having to juggle multiple Plex logins and also not running as “admin” for watching Plex.
I honestly do have to use a Password Manager to do so, but been using one for years and so it is no big deal to add a few more logins to the mix. Once the Plex accounts are setup, there is very little management of the accounts other than having the Password Manager storing the logins. So, the issue present is not one I see, however I’m saying you have a valid point.
But, your complaint is valid only for people who find it inconvenient to store multiple logins. It seems you are asking for a different classes of accounts. Have Managed Accounts (more restricted) and some other new type of Account that is not restricted (without the need to create a full Plex login account).
From my point of view, Plex communicated that their vision for Managed Accounts was that they were to be managed in the sense of the being managed by parents for their kids, who required restrictions. Plex Home was Plex’s own solution to allowing family members to have their own unrestricted accounts. So, my solution is not a workaround, but is how Plex designed Plex to be used.
What I keep seeing on this thread is that users are trying to make a round peg fit a square hole. More importantly, I don’t think most people on this thread honestly realize how Plex Home was designed to fix their problem to a large degree.
In my many years of running Plex, 've been running with a mixture of Managed Accounts and Free Plex Accounts connected through Plex Home. While my kids are younger than 18, they get a Managed Account. Once 18, I determine they are ready to run more-or-less unsupervised on Plex and get their own Plex account. My wife has her own Plex Account too.
Now, I do this change over at 18 with the kids, but other families can determine what age is appropriate for their families.
The other benefit of this is that the kids go off on their own later (college, work, whatever) and they bring those full accounts with them. They don’t need to (and shouldn’t be) using my own Plex login on their devices.
Okay, getting back to your “admin” account issue. A very valid one. I’ll even go a step further and say a 4-digit PIN is not sufficient for protecting your “admin” account. I’ve been actually thinking of buying a second Plex Lifetime Pass. My “admin” user would be the only account on the first Plex Pass, and the rest of my Plex Home would use the second Plex Pass. That would increase the security GREATLY. Now, this is a true “workaround!” I wish Plex would allow admin accounts to be protected with something more secure.
However, you can have a second free Plex account connected to your Plex Home that is used for viewing only, but yes, it isn’t optimal because of the insecurity of 4-digits.
Then please, point out what I missed. What does my solution not address?
Vertical-smile’s did so. Their issue is having to remember/store multiple Plex logins. Valid point, but I’m not sure that is something Plex needs to fix when Password Managers do exactly that. However, I get it, not everyone wants to invest into a Password Manager or trust a printed sheet of passwords.
I realize I’m taking “I’m better than you stance” but I’m completely open to understanding this “problem/issues” that remain after presenting my solution. At least am presenting a solution that does indeed work but no one seems to wish to try it.
Plex is a HUGE part of my family’s life and I have invested a couple hundred dollars into Plex, inc. and then thousands into hardware and media all in an EFFORT to protect my family (kids). I’ve extended that to multiple families in my circles, who all want to protect their families too.
What I’m saying is that I want to understand these “problems/issues” beyond my solution to perhaps gain a better understanding as to how best to use Plex to manage media for individual users for their safety and enjoyment.
As it stands right now, I don’t think most users posting to this thread understand Plex’s original vision for Manage Accounts nor do they understand how Plex Home works.
I had a misunderstanding of Managed Accounts early in my time with Plex (why can’t a Manage Account share content on my friend’s Plex server?). Some of the Plex support staff helped me to see their vision in the development of Managed Accounts. Then Plex Home came out and it addressed all my issues. Plex Home and multiple free Plex accounts really does address the large majority of problems here.
When I posted back in June, no one even replied or addressed my proposed solution. OttoKerner gave the same solution early in the thread, but no one appears to really bring up what is wrong with his solution. They just keep rambling on about the same problems and never seem to take his, and my, solution into consideration. I’m just taking another stab at presenting the solution given twice before.
CBMe, you are on your high horse too. So, please answer my initial question to you:
“…why not challenge the solution that I have strongly stated?”
What is wrong with multiple free Plex accounts connected to Plex Home? How does this not address the problems? I’ve been doing it for years now and it works beautifully.
Soo it’s 2025 now and there hasn’t been any kind of update on this in over a year. Is this seriously going to just slip through the cracks? How long does it take to discuss this internally? At this point even just hearing a “we considered this and decided we’re not going to implement it” would be better than the current deafening silence.
This wouldn’t even be a problem for my personal setup, if Plex Home was not put behind the Plex Pass. The only option to even get any functionality close to this requires a paid plan, to get a sub-optimal workaround to this half-baked feature that should have been available when Discover launched.
Totally. I was so excited to show my mom how to use the discover, but then was bummed to see that she couldn’t use the cool feature I just discoverd.
I too don’t follow the logic why Managed Users can’t discover content nor why it takes so long to implement this feature.
I have read that the assumption is that managed users are kids but that doesn’t fly. Kids of what age? What about adult children, spouses, other relatives or household members? What about kids setting up Plex for their adult parents? etc.
Creating other accounts is an insufficient workaround as devices are more difficult to share. Switching account requires to log out and log back in, enter a password that most users won’t remember, or are very inconvenient to enter (TV app).
There is already the option to restrict to all users vs all managed users. Adding “Not restricted” doesn’t seem a big leap.
Can I just submit a PR to the Plex team and be done with it? I don’t understand why such a simple option requires such a lengthly debate.
How has this not been implemented yet? This is a hill to die on. Super frustrating that my Wife cannot create/manage her own watchlist. I imagine that there are many of us with automated workflows who would appreciate it if this feature was implemented. I don’t care to see my friend’s watchlist. I’d much rather be able to see my managed users’ watchlist.
100%!!! I use Plex the same way, as do many others.
Plex really should/needs to create a formal Admin user with add, remove, edit, etc.
As it currently stands, I can’t use my “user” account to access any of the Plex Pass features I’ve been paying for. 
Please add this feature as an option to enable for managed accounts.
Seeing as how I’m somehow a member of a single-user (myself) Plex Home, and there seems to be no way to remove oneself as “Home Admin” even when there are no other users, I’d really like to see resolution for this. 
