Allow managed users to have access to shared content

yeah, they also get it for free.

+1!!!
I’d love this! Currently my kids use my account to watch our own content and others however this opens the door to accidental clicks on content not appropriate for their age. As they get older, it leaves the door open for purposeful clicks on inappropriate content. I added a kids user to my account but now they are limited to the small select of content I have versus all the content viewable on the servers from my two friends. Kids stinks that I can’t protect my kids from the content on other servers unless I lock down my own personal account for anything over PG.

Important and needed feature!

+1

There seems to be a lot of anger around granting access to managed users via an account that already has access to a shared library. The managed users in my account are already watching the shared libraries, just they have to use my account. So the usage is probably the same. Granting it only seems to have upside of making it more clear who your content is being shared with. And who says if Plex added this that they wouldn’t allow the content sharer to throttle data by top level accounts and managed users of those top level accounts.

It would be nice if I could request access to share libraries for my managed users and doing this showed up as a request on the content sharer side. At that time, the person sharing the content can approve or reject my request. If approved the content becomes available for my managed users. Any content rating restrictions I have setup would also apply to these new shared libraries.

This isn’t a commentary on how easy or hard the technical implementation is, just a commentary on the user experience I think most users want to see.

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Hello all,
I was wondering if there was any headway on this. It sure would be nice to add family profiles to shared library.

Yeah this would be fantastic for me too, I share my library with a few friends who have kids and would love to be able to filter their access to only kid-friendly stuff.

Also, the kids TV really messes with the grown-ups “Continue Watching” section, would be nice if it was separate.

I haven’t tried this yet, but I believe your friends can create separate Plex accounts for their kids. Then, add those accounts to their Plex Home. Add a PIN to their parent account.

Now, you need to invite their new kid accounts to your Plex server. Finally, restrict content to those new accounts.

Downside - the kid accounts need to have outside services disabled.

However, at this time Discover and Watchlists and Search “More Ways to Watch” cannot be disabled.

I am the father of a 6-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and a 21-year-old girl. I have an account with access to an external server. The problem is that on that external server there are movies and series not recommended for children under 7 years of age and not recommended for children under 18.

I would like to make 3 “managed accounts”. One for each of my daughters, hiding certain folders and content not recommended for her age. And another for my oldest daughter who would have, for example, access to everything except a folder with adult movies.

I understand that “managed accounts” is simply a filter to restrict access to certain content that the main account has access to.

I believe that PLEX Server has the option to limit simultaneous access to a certain number of devices, for example 1, 2 and 4.

Therefore, if they give me access to an external server with the limitation of only being able to connect with 1 device at a time, it does not matter if I create different managed accounts to be able to restrict the content that my family sees, because I will only be able to connect to the server from one device at a time.

On the other hand, if the access granted to the server is for a maximum of 2 simultaneous devices, even if I have 3 “managed accounts” created, I will only be able to connect to the server, for example, from my main account and from a “managed account” to the time.

The problem is that currently PLEX’s “managed accounts” feature is practically meaningless if you can’t control the content of servers that the main account has access to.

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If I understand correctly, you can make it in your case.

Let’s say you have a friend with a server. You create one Plex account for you and your daughters. Your friend can share its server with these 4 accounts, and (S)HE has to limit the content of the shared server (her)himself. (As a shared friend, you don’t have any rights on the shared libraries)
Finally, you can create a Plex home and regroup the 4 accounts under the same devices (for that your need to pay a Plex Pass, that’s the end goal I guess).

The problem is that my friend gives me access only to me, since really his friend is me. He gives me access to the Plex account created with my email.

At this point, I have access to all of my friend’s content. But of course, I want to create several “managed users” to manage what my daughters see, since this is my responsibility and not my friend’s responsibility.

I think there are contradictions with this functionality. The idea is good but it is really worthless because it does not allow you to manage content to which you have already been given permission.

I understand that a friend cannot be given access to an external server, because the manager of that server has only given me access and not my friend. But I don’t understand that inside my house I can’t use “managed users” to control what my daughters see and don’t see.

Therefore, I request the addition of this functionality.

I certainly agree with the sentiment in this thread. Plex Home and switch accounts are great features to allow parents to create managed accounts for their children to employ restrictions on what they watch. I also agree with the sentiment that the server owner is sharing their library with just one account, and it is a surprise if suddenly multiple accounts are consuming content.

I don’t believe this prohibits the ability to add the suggested feature. Specifically, I think it would not be a surprise to the server owner if they granted this permission on a user-by-user basis. By default, this would be Disabled, for the reasons stated in the above concerns. But upon request, a friend can receive the permission to allow their managed users to have access to the content shared to them, and the server owner can grant this permission. These managed accounts would still be restricted by the rating restrictions put on them by the parent when viewing the content in the shared libraries.
This would allow Plex Home, managed accounts, and switching accounts features to be used to their fullest potential.

It would look something like this:

Implementation in this regard ensures the server owner is still in control, and there would not be any surprises when a managed user begin to watch content. I repeat - by default, this option would be Disabled. The server owner, at any time, can revoke the permission and the managed accounts would lose access to the shared libraries.

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If I set up a new Plex account for my child, my friend shares their server with my child’s account. Is there a way for me to limit what my child can watch using restrictions, or only my friend can set up restrictions for my child?

I cannot see a way to set up restrictions on the main user of a plex account, but perhaps I missed it.

You can only control what you share with others (friends or managed users) and what (additional) restrictions are applied to your managed users. You cannot apply general/additional restrictions to friends with their own Plex accounts (e.g. no restriction profiles for certain age groups).

Neither you nor your friend who’s sharing media with your kids can control what online media sources they can see/use if you give them their own regular Plex accounts.

After almost 8 YEARS this feature is still not implemented!

How come that Plex does not listen to its community and customers but rather implement all new stuff nobody cares for and nobody wanted (like social feed)

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+1. Please add this feature that has been discussed for 8 years, and so many people have been asking for, nonstop. It’s a *Default Disabled* option. No change to existing behavior. But, for those that WANT this often requested feature (option), they can Opt-In. And you make people happy.

Myself, I only found all of this, just this week, after another PMS friend shared their library with me. I have a “main (admin)” account, which can access their library. But my wife and I have Managed Users, as well as a common “BothOfUs” Managed User. This works perfectly for our needs. I “never” use the main (admin) Plex Account for viewing. But … the shared library can only be viewed on this main account, and none of the MU accounts? See, this is not just for those with children in the house. There are other use cases.

Please add this feature.

2 Likes

I like it the way it is. I don’t want to send out an invite to someone for them to access my libraries, and then find that they’ve let several other people also access my libraries. There’s several problems with that.
If there was a way to send out an invite to a managed user, then that would be OK as I could then explicitly decide who’s going to have access. Otherwise, please don’t change this. There are privacy and bandwidth implications.

I disagree, having this possible while enabling proper permissions control to the owner of the library is the way to go.

I share my library with my friends who want, with my permission, to share it with their kids (who have their own managed users). Currently this is not possible, so they resort to letting their kids use their own user. Not having this feature does NOT prevent “uncontrolled” access such as what you described, if anything it encourages it without one knowing who is actually accessing it.

A perfect solution for this that would basically take the “burden of responsibility” away from the Plex devs is adding a check mark box in the “Restrictions” section that states “Allow access to their Managed Users”.
That gives the Server admin freedom to allow or disallow that option per-user, as well as you can add an option inside the “Friends” Managed Profile Setup to what shared libraries to grant access to the managed user, (and FINALLY) parental controls. Each party then has their ability to control what they want to.

This feature needs implemented. Every streaming service on the planet allows for subaccounts to access the same content, and apply access restrictions to them via the “account holder’s” account. “Where and who” the content comes from shouldn’t be a concern. Disney adds content to their streaming platform all the time who’s “MPA” rating I disagree with, but no one is storming the gates of hell about that either. Let US decided if the risk is worth enabling it or not.

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Well here’s the news. They already can, as you cannot prevent they login hundred devices all over their friends houses all accessing your content.

Enabling acces to shared content for managed users of a a Plex Home changes NOTHING in regards of server owner control.

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