I would also like this, my friend has plenty of power and bandwidth and he would have the power to limit this or not, and to be honest, if my kids want to watch something they just use my account where ever they are, but I have to make sure of what they put on because I can’t filter any of the content.
If I were to setup a separate account for them I would also need to pay another subscription to Plex Pass which I think is the primary reason for not having this. you aren’t resharing the shared server, you are only specifying which user is using it and would have the ability to filter content.
My friends library is much better than mine, my kids barely use mine so what is the point in having the managed users if its only for local content which in my case is extremely limiting… (they are sick of what I have already)
I think it’s silly this has not been implemented. :\
I have server that I share with other family households. I want that family to be able to have the same experience I do on my account. If I share my server with them, they have no way to restrict the content for their kids. Their kids would either need to:
Log out of their parents account and log in to their kid account (much more annoying than switching users and not feasible for younger kids).
Have good sense knowing what content is safe for them and only watch that content.
The only semi-feasible workaround I’m seeing right now is to put a script together that monitors the libraries as the kid user from my account and any files it finds it would symlink those to some other folder and then I’d have to create a “Kids Movies” and “Kids TV” library pointing at those. But then any manual metadata correction I have to do in the main “Movies” or “TV” library, I’d have to do in the kids library.
Just give us an option that we can check that allows us to share with managed users. Keep it un-checked by default so the behavior remains as is…i don’t care…just gimme the option. Please. Pretty please. With a cherry on top.
Agree that the sharing party should have control over whether managed users on the shared party’s plex account can access their media. Also agree that throttling could be implemented to say “Only X simultaneous streams or downloads from this plex home at a time” would be good.
My wife and I have separate managed user accounts so that we can save our own preferences and history as to which movies and TV shows we’ve already played and which are still unplayed, etc. Even though I own and control the administrator account, I prefer having a non-privileged account available to perform my actual viewing and leave the admin account for config changes only.
I think most people who share libraries are fine with sharing it with multiple household members of the primary (and it’s happening anyway because many members simply login with their administrator account on all devices anyhow because it’s easier than setting up managed users.)
Let me first say that i found this thread because i wanted the exact same functionality. Being able to filter and control all the media i have access to via shares would be invaluable.
As stated by several previously, i currently let my kids have full access so they can still access the shares but there is no filter. This is less than ideal but it works and i do trust my kids. But kids do get curious and some of the media available they shouldn’t be watching.
The proposal reached with using an opt-in system seems viable from the outside but would obviously require programming and controls from the other end, none of which my limited experience is qualfied to comment on. That said, several people here who appear qualified believe it is worth consideration.
I can see some of the concerns of early commentors (although i don’t quite understand their passion) and worry that it may be used to over share and limit incomes to the producers of this useful program. Yet not many will purchase multiple passes for the different members of their family as the price starts to become an issue.
I also understand the concerns over making things too complex with multiple levels of control that may impact one another unintentionally. Yet the proposal seems fairly straight forward from the outside if the filtering is done on the user side. With the need to activate this functionality via a simple radio toggle, it seems relatively simple and safe to use.
I hope that this functionality is brought into the system some time in the near future.
I was also looking for the same here. I have a daughter, I have her limits on. and she doesn’t have an email, she has her managed user on my PMS, but I have other sources shared with me that I’d want her user to access!
A managed user depends on your own password being put to the client, so I don’t see (maybe I am too naive) the issue where you would “reshare” the shared with you content…
To add to what others are saying, this should definitely be a feature and it’s ridiculous it’s been NEARLY 6 YEARS since this started and still hasn’t been implemented.
I just subscribed to Plex Pass thinking this was a feature but since it’s not I will not be renewing.
I have my own account but I registered a new family specific Plex account so that I could share some media to my family, and have that account with multiple users for different family members.
In my situation it’s as follows:
myoriginalaccount@gmail - main server with plex pass
admin: me
familyspecificaccount@gmail - 3 shared libraries from my main server account
admin: me
user 1: parents
user 2: nephew
user 3: niece
user 4: brother
Unless there’s some setting I’m missing, the way that it is now the shared media is only seen from the “admin” user and not available to the other family members under that same account. I want to give one single login to all 4 family members, and each have their own user with own watch history. Basically just like with Netflix, I give them my login and they have their own user profiles.
I don’t want to have to ask every single family member to create their own Plex accounts using their own emails/passwords. Just “hey here’s the email and password to login, select your user and watch whatever you want on there, simple as that.” Except it’s not as simple as that right now apparently.
Josh (Me) - I have a lifetime plex pass. I have Managed Users (kids).
John (friend) - He has a lifetime plex pass. He has Managed Users (kids).
I share my content with John.
John shares his content with me.
I have kid appropriate content and kid inappropriate content (not porn).
John has kid appropriate content and kid inappropriate content (not porn).
I have G and PG filters for my Managed Users. It filters the content I own. However, my kids can’t access John’s content without using my “User.” Thankfully John has his kid content separated into it’s own library and my kids know to only look in that library and we do not allow TV time to be unmonitored. However, I would prefer the PG-13 and R content not even be visible to them because we don’t even want some of the images of the content to protect their innocence (not sheltering them, but just being good parents - a worthy goal).
Right now, I cannot (or don’t know how) to give John’s content to my Managed Users in a filtered way. Since John’s content is already shared with me there is no difference between me or my Managed Users as they are in my home. Again, they already watch John’s content, but do so by switching users. My Managed Users are variations of “Me” (as far as John’s server is concerned) and therefore I (as admin) should have ability to allow visibility of libraries shared with me in their user profile.
I realize protecting kids is countercultural in 2020. However, I believe that is why Plex is such a wonderful tool/software and why I believe in it so much. Be better than Netflix, Amazon, Apple and the rest. The parental controls on most of these can be summed up in this idea - “Don’t give any boundaries to your kids. Just let them do what they want.”
+1 – This is absolutely needed for families with children and every argument against it is by Plex in this forum is utterly ridiculous. Just add the feature.
The current system is completely useless. Why should I give someone 2 streams on my server if they can’t use 2 accounts?
With any other streaming service it is possible to make sub-accounts and set the respective FSK and thus also allow children to use.
As a server admin, I don’t care how many users the user shares my media libraries with. The only thing that matters to me is the number of streams and I can limit that.
The current system is completely unusable for families and completely contradicts the actual purpose of Plex Home and certainly the Plex idea. After all, who wants to have their playlists messed up or their viewing statistics screwed up by other sub-users. It urgently needs the possibility to use these Home accounts also with shared media libraries.
The majority of all Plex users are certainly only users and not server admins. Therefore, this needs to be implemented urgently.
How about some feedback on how this feature is doing? There has been no feedback on this from you or any other developer for 4 years. I think it would be an important thing to implement this cleanly and especially to give info about it.
it’s really rough to not be able to allow a kids’ account access to shared libraries (and specifically limit content that account can play to a rating or particular shares)
I was looking for this Feature & would love to see it implemented.
A Setting in “Shared Media” on the host like “Allow access from Managed Users” or the like would be awesome!
So, my friend and I were originally sharing a single plex account with each of our servers attached to it. I decided for the sake of organization and supporting plex, that I would purchase Plex Pass lifetime on my own account as well, transfer my server over to my own account and then just share my server libraries with him and his managed users (people I want to be able to access my libraries). I figured this would be an obvious feature but I am now finding out it is not. and am honestly very disappointed.
I understand that each managed user CAN create their own account and I can share with them as well but that would require each managed user to also purchase a plex pass which is ridiculous to ask for otherwise, they can’t use the mobile app which is 50% of the viewing in my use-case. If this feature isn’t one you want to be implemented then at least allow mobile users to use the app for free if they are trying to stream from a plex pass paid-for library.
