This exactly. They have no account, they cannot share, nor can they be shared to other than the home admin user.
If you share your server with me, you are sharing with me.
Not my home wife/children/mother/father/brother/sister/nextdoorneighborwhocouldnotbebotheredtocreatetheirownaccount.
All of those managed users that you do not/may not know or have any control over.
You may not care if your server is accessed by someone other than who you directly authorized, but I do. I am sure many others do, especially those with limited bandwidth.
But hey, that is just my opinion, even in the unlikely event they made it optional, I wouldn’t enable it.
But that response fundamentally supports my claim that there is no difference and the current system is an arbitrary limitation. I still don’t understand why there is animosity and resistance to this. If I log into 26 devices, whether they are using my primary account or a managed account, it’s still my account in the end. All 26 devices are still using my credentials.
So then, what’s the difference? I can log into my living room TV with my credentials and log into my family room TV with the same credentials (mine). It’s still content shared with my user account. The only difference is that it allows some customization of what libraries are visible and I may decided not to make certain libraries visible to the managed user on family room TV. Otherwise, it’s still my account, and no one has adequately explained why that is a bad thing.
the difference is that by you logging into 26 devices with your credentials, and then letting someone else use them, obfuscates at best (if you tell the server owner and they don’t care), or outright deceives the owner of the server that shared with you in the first place (if you are hiding that fact), who in fact is user actually streaming.
If I share with you, I expect typically 1, maybe 2 active streams. I would guess most people are not streaming multiple things simultaniously.
If you were able to re-share (with or without my consent), now I am looking at potentially dozens of active streams, with no good way to restrict or clear indication of who is using them (other than the original authorized user).
I have no animosity to the request, but even with it being an option, I just don’t see plex intending that behavior or expending the resources to implement it, nor would I want them to.
I mean, look at all of the other feature requests with thousands of votes that are yet un-implemented?
I don’t understand why people get so pressed over this…
IF, they gave us the ability to share with managed users, it would/could literally be as simple as a toggle/dropdown of how many managed users this person can share with.
Just because YOU don’t like the idea or don’t see any need/use for it, doesn’t remove the fact it would be helpful for others (myself included). I should not be the one managing the parental controls for other peoples children because they have no other choice than creating a separate account, with their own separate email address, for a 4 year old.
But this is an entirely different level of discussion than what is being requested here. If you are sharing content with me, you know me. This is not a commercial action because that’s explicitly against Plex’s TOS. This is also not a random, anonymous action. If it is, then there’s something fishy going on w/ the server owner that is well outside the bounds of what’s being requested here.
The argument for this request is that this is not sharing without your consent. A managed user is the exact same entity as the user you shared with. Managed users can not log in independently. And that’s the point that I feel like those against this are missing. As soon a you share a library out, you already have surrendered control over where it’s played because it is 100% dependent on the credentials of the user account receiving the share. You could potentially be looking at dozens of streams to the single user account you shared with or with managed users. The potential consequence is 100% identical. It has absolutely nothing to do with managed users because a managed user still has to log in with the same user account you shared with.
And this goes back to a point I made in another thread. If you don’t like how your content is being accessed, it’s a very, very simple solution. Disable the share. It’s the exact same solution regardless if the playback is done by the primary user account or a managed user account.
I just feel like there is so much discourse about people using it to trick a server owner, or abuse the sharing. And that logic makes no sense. Like, are you really so distrustful of the family and friends you made a conscious choice to share content with? Because again, that’s a fundamentally different discussion that has nothing to do with making libraries visible to managed users.
A managed user is not the same entity. This is the fallacy.
You want to make a managed user == admin user.
They are not.
The whole point of having a managed user, is restricted access.
Managed users access and restrictions exist wholly within the home admins server/account.
Again, if you want to have your home users given access to content outside of YOUR server(s), then they, or you, can create a regular plex account, invite them to your home, and get them invited to your friends server.
also, trust…
… to only allow them a managed user?
do you not trust them with a regular plex account?
but you trust them with content outside of your control ?
Also, there are no ‘re-shares’ anywhere in plex.
I foresee it highly unlikely that it gets any traction within plex, to change that, and only change it for managed users.
I only started commenting to offer a viable work around, not really to argue for or against this particular feature request, so this will likely be my last comment, and I wish you all the luck and votes for it to get implemented in some fashion that is acceptable to you and others.
My assertion is that it is the same entity because a managed user can not log in unless I log in. And I haven’t seen an explanation of why it’s so different other than…
I absolutely do not want managed users to be an admin users. And it seems most of the comments in favor of this being a feature also do not want to make a managed user an admin user. The goal is for an admin user to be able assign a shared library to a managed user.
Once again, this kind of argument fundamentally supports those who want this feature implemented. You share a library with a user account, and that user account, wherever it’s logged in, can access the shared libraries. Everywhere that user is logged in. But with a managed user, only certain devices can see those shared libraries. For a server owner who shares content, this kind of restriction has greater benefits than it has drawbacks.
What drawbacks? I don’t know. There haven’t been compelling arguments for why there would be drawbacks for a feature like this.
But the request is not for general home users. The request is for managed users. Which are users who do not exist outside of the account who received the shared content. I really feel like I have to keep repeating myself, but I’ll say it again, shared content can not be re-shared externally if granted to a managed user. By the very definition of a managed user it must stay within the realm of the user who is receiving the share.
My kids? No. That’s exactly why my TVs are signed with managed users. It’s so I can restrict library access. And also, separate Plex accounts would mean I have to pay for a Plex Pass across multiple accounts to gain certain features. This was an argument which was made earlier in this thread and a Plex employee said that resistance to implementing this had nothing to do with trying to make people pay for multiple Plex Passes. So yes, I want to have the benefits of a Plex Pass across my devices, and still be able to expose shared content to specific devices with managed users under my primary login.
No. This is exactly why so many people want this capability. Specifically for access control. Max shared his content with me. I get to see what’s in the libraries. With this feature implemented, I also decide which devices (based on managed users) get that access.
Exactly! And yet the arguments seem to make it seem like allowing shared content for managed users will become the wild, wild west for server owners. As I said above, the very definition of a managed user means that the content can not be shared outside of the person you shared to.
Which is probably appreciated for those who don’t need to use managed user accounts as guardrails.
And yet, my original question still goes unanswered. What is the fundamental difference that makes it bad for shared libraries to be visible to a managed user compared to the primary user?
I don’t think it is a matter of ‘bad’ or anything else for that matter.
It is a matter of, managed users = have access to only the admin’s content (and what plex content the admin has enabled). That is the (ostensibly) intended purpose. Period. The End. (for me)
These are exactly the false claims I was hoping for.
Exactly this is prevented with the already implemented block on the number of streams per account.
I give my friends a maximum of 4 parallel streams, because there is more than enough bandwidth and precisely because there are many with 4-6 family members, the majority logically children.
Currently, however, there is only the possibility that all use the same account, so it is not possible to create their own watch lists or playlists. It is also not possible to block adult content FSK18 for the children. So how are children to be protected? It can not be that I have to waste 4-6 of my 99 places for a family when one release per family is enough and they set up sub-accounts that they themselves with the data released for the main account for the sub-accounts may limit.
Every, really every other service, be it Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, Paramount+ etc. offers such possibilities of subaccounts and age limits etc. so why not Plex? Why do you have to create a separate login/account for everyone? You don’t have to do that anywhere else. The home account function is therefore completely useless for 99% of all Plex users. Because I claim that 99% of all Plex users do not have their own server, but access friends and relatives.
For me simply once again a curtailment of the rights of the server owners, these should be much more allowed to decide for themselves what is possible on your server, but Plex itself prevents this with countless locks or justifies itself with the fact that the user has to decide this and that and exactly this many server owners find wrong.
I don’t think this is desired that you can use one account on all possible platforms, this seems to be a utopian dream as with many other platforms and scenarios.
This is about Plex and why not make it possible to have one main account and then a few sub-accounts for family members. You don’t have to make 10-15 possible, that would be nonsensical, but at least enough for an average family, which as far as I know is something around 4 people.
Again I argue as always with the protection of children from adult content, I think Plex takes this point far too lightly and it can’t be that you have to waste X main accounts per families and then have to adjust the access rights for them. In addition, it is simply idiotic that every family member has to log out and log in again when another family member wants to watch something on a device where, for example, everyone has access. Not to mention that with every login and logout the settings are reset to default and the users have to set this again fresh to be able to see the desired quality.
The longer you think about it and look at the ACTUAL situation, the more you notice what is simply impractical, stupid and illogical about the current system.
There’s still the bizarre argument about re-sharing that has not been adequately explained. I maintain that logging into 26 devices and only using my primary user account is worse than logging into 26 devices and dividing that into 4, 5, 6 managed users or more. For a server owner, scenario 1 just looks like I’m streaming a ton of stuff from a variety of random devices without any clarity into why that is. At least if it were divided into different managed users in scenario 2, a server admin can see that all the streaming is because it’s being split among different devices, likely in different parts of the house (or however else someone would set up managed users).
I’m not going to my neighbor’s house and saying, “Hey, Randy. I’m gonna log into your TV with my account and give you access to a friend’s media.” And then go to Lance’s house and do the same thing. This is not a realistic scenario. And let’s say that for the sake of argument that this really happens. There’s still the point that Max, who shared the content with me, knows me. He can text me, email me, call me, whatever, and just say “hey man, knock it off.” Managed users are not strangers. They are still my account, just with a different label.
It makes no sense to me that giving someone a good way to limit viewing of shared content is a bad thing.
Also, the D+ and Netflix argument can not apply here. It’s not like Disney and Netflix share a federated login. They are two completely independent businesses (for now) with separate subscriptions. All we’re asking here is for the same login to have access to shared content via different user labels.
I can’t believe this has been a request for 10 years. I don’t understand the delay.
I simply want a managed account to have access to other plex servers; the option could be selectable, so that those managed accounts that I don’t want to have access to other plex servers, could easily be disabled through a setting.
All of the arguments against seem baseless.
Agreed. It’s a bogus argument.
I can’t believe this has been a request for 10 years. I don’t understand the delay.
I simply want a managed account to have access to other plex servers; the option could be selectable, so that those managed accounts that I don’t want to have access to other plex servers, could easily be disabled through a setting.
All of the arguments against seem baseless.
If Plex employees are worried about liabilities and explicit consent, I would propose a couple different options that would at least move closer toward having the full control users are asking for while still maintaining the control over a server that is expected.
Allow a Home Admin to adopt a full fledged account as a managed user into the Plex Home
Allow a Managed Account to link an email address so that libraries from remote users can share servers/libraries with it.
Allow the visibility of the ID that is associated with a Managed Account user and allow the ability to share to the ID rather than just an email address.
Include a checkbox (maybe in the Libraries tab or the Restrictions tab of a User Profile being shared to) that allows the libraries you share to also be inherited to the Managed Accounts in their Plex Home. Maybe it could be “auto-accepted” as the parent server of the Managed Account currently is. It could, and probably should, even be opt-in rather than opt-out, making it a feature that server owners would explicitly have to enable, thus allowing it to be revoked later if needed.
Perhaps some of these were already suggested in this thread (I admit I didn’t read every post) but from these options here I would think that a happy-medium would be able to be reached that would make Managed Accounts much more useful and versatile.
It is just amazing that this tread has managed 10 years and still this is using the stupid setting. It’s so easy.
User gets access to a server, there he can pick which managed account has access to what.
The one who shared his access would just have to talk to his friend about mis use if it matters (which it does not). This is just a social issue that some programers can not understand. Completely baseless bullshit.
I still don’t understand the problem that the programmers and power users of Plex repeatedly cite here.
They always talk about security and that the server owner has to know who has access where and how, but that doesn’t matter as long as you can say whether you allow sub-accounts and you can limit the number of streams. (The second is already possible)
As a server admin with over 100 friends on 2 servers, I always have discussions with families who are not prepared to create 2-3 accounts for their children just so that you can restrict them and create individual histories and playlists. This should be the responsibility of the account owner and does not interest me as a server admin at all, as long as I have control over the number of streams, I don’t care who shares this with whom.
Since all other stream providers allow you to create sub-accounts and keep your own playlists and histories, I just wonder why Plex doesn’t want to do this. It is simply an important topic that is of particular interest to families.
Most people would be prepared to pay a little more for this, i.e. a Plex Pass or something, but even this option is not available.
For me it is simply not plausible not to leave this decision to the server admin. Why do you always have to decide what I can and can’t offer my friends and family? I can share several streams per account, but they can’t create and use sub-accounts with their own histro, playlists and age limits. This is incomprehensible to me, as it goes against all logic.
Why isn’t this solved with a ‘Allow access to sub-accounts’ with another option ‘Limit number of sub-accounts simultaneously streaming’?
I am struggling to see the difference between what seems like the argument here of someone selling access with sub accounts? Would they not still need the main account?
It seems like it’s been over a year since any Plex employee has been here. We have to assume that this feature will never be implemented due to a “what if…” policy that should be resolved between the server owner and the invited friend with configuration options between them.
Just chiming in at how unintuitive this restriction is. For years I have presumed that all libraries that are available to me are also available to users in my “Plex Home”. We share devices, after all.
I don’t need Plex to be a ProxyNanny for me here. I can easily manage all of this myself. Just let me share, please.
