+1 to this long-standing request: Allow syncing of original files no matter what streams is present. My library has been carefully optimized for my playback devices, including multiple audio streams, metadata, and embedded subtitles, and I want the full range of those options to be present at playback time.
I tried to sync a movie to my iPad. Downloading the movie would have taken 7 minutes.
2h47 minutes later, itâs at 21% transcoding. I have no idea what it is doing, as the movie is only 900MB mp4.
Itâs been over 4 years and no movement on this, itâs inexcusable.
Hi. Long time PLEX user and just upgraded to the Lifetime pass mostly to support the developers. I was suprised that you just simply canât download an original copy of your own media to play on your target device, regardless of the format.
Why is this? Is it a codec licensing issue and PLEX wants you to use their own player? As others have stated we just want to transfer files without maxing out our CPUâs for 10 hours when the file can be played using video players from developers with nowhere near the user base PLEX has. Why canât PLEX do this?
You essentially pay a subscription for hours on end of transcoding for a lot of your media when it could easily be such a fantastic feature.
It just makes mobile sync a bit of a useless feature for a lot of users in my opinion.
I havenât tried it, but it looks like it might be easier to simply dump
content onto the mobile device via USB. I think Iâm right in saying that
Plex can now play local content? The other thing I have done is got a WD My
Passport Wireless Pro, which does work surprisingly well âŠ
Ugh⊠It makes me sad to have to post this work around. @Plex developers - guys⊠Come on⊠Itâs an HTTP download⊠If you need me to come in and show you how itâs done, we can set something upâŠ
For people looking for a solution here, there is a work around⊠Install an app with âFile Sharingâ capabilities⊠Might I suggest taking a look at VLC - Olâ Faithful⊠Once you have VLC or whatever installed on your iPad, youâll want to open up iTunes and then select your device (currently, itâs a little rectangle at the top left-ish of the window thatâs tilted for âportraitâ) - then select âFile Sharingâ from the âAppsâ menu on the left. Now in your web browser (I am using Chrome), navigate to https://plex.tv, log in and select your server - now you should be able to navigate to the media youâre wanting to copy and download it by clicking on the vertically aligned 3 dots and clicking âdownloadâ. Once youâve downloaded your media, you should be able to drag it to your app via âFile Sharingâ in the iTunes App File Sharing window that you opened at the beginning of these instructions. Now you should hopefully be able to play your media on your iPad/iPhone using VLC or whatever filesharing media player app that you selected (VLC works great, soâŠ)âŠ
Thanks, Plex?
Seriously tho, Plex Developers⊠Developer to developer - I can show you how to code an HTTP download if need be⊠I know I am being a smart-A here, but as a long time Plex Pass lifetime member, it really does make me a little sad to see this as an outstanding request for years without being addressed⊠literally years⊠unaddressed⊠a feature request to simply be able to download the original copy of a file from a server without going through hours of transcodingâŠ
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I finally purchased a Plex Pass earlier this week for the Syncing feature specifically.
Only to now find it will transcode even the smallest of files, at Original quality, which otherwise plays just fine on my device when copied over using other means.
What a disappointment. :â( This feature is useless, and am deciding on asking for a refund of the Pass. This is the only Pass feature I need to function properly.
@âMovieFan.Plexâ @antoniolg @ManuelPG
Hi guys, just wondering if you are aware of this request? Itâs been knocking about for 4 years and customers are still asking for it and Plex have not made any response - it seems a reasonable feature and shouldnât take to much work in build into the system.
Also from a environmental point of view, why waste power converting something which will happily play on the client device in itâs native format - just think of the amount carbon dioxide it would reduce from going into the atmosphere! That alone is reason enough to add this feature in.
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Iâve given up on getting sync to work. For video (TV, movies) I now have a
Passport Wireless Pro that goes travelling with me. For audiobooks, Iâve
just tried Booksonic and discovered that its cache feature can be used
explicitly, so that is effectively the same as sync. As itâs derived from
Subsonic I assume that that could probably do something similar for music?
Devs take note: Plex is ceasing to be - or never has been - the âbest of
breedâ solution in many areas. Youâre probably just about still there for
video, although I havenât tried Emby yet - if it turns out to be any good
the only thing keeping using Plex at all will be the embedded ports to the
Passport Wireless Pro and my brotherâs seagate NAS.
My iPhone 6 can direct play everything in my library, and to sync I have to burn up major CPU cycles to transcode video before syncingâŠ
Can a Plex dev please chime in and tell us the reasoning for not having a transcode-less, direct-copy, sync capability?
As mentioned before, the current implementation of Mobile Sync does not take into account a specific deviceâs capabilities. It uses a generic profile to check if a file can be direct played or not. We are hoping to account for the deviceâs capabilities in the next implementation of the feature.
For example, devices are starting to support HEVC, but no HEVC content can be synced without transcoding now.
Movie Fan.Plex, thanks so much for taking note of this issue. Itâs
extremely frustrating to be a lifetime member and have core issues like
this ignored.
Please be sure to also test the behavior with the windows 10 app. Itâs
extremely frustrating to have to transcode a file which plays fine locally
but not in the app.
Any changes to Sync would carry over to iOS and Windows too.
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Having just run headlong in to this issue myself it is rather annoying to have a Synology NAS trying to transcode a file, I just in essence want it to pass the file to the device much like DS Video does.
@MovieFan.Plex said:
As mentioned before, the current implementation of Mobile Sync does not take into account a specific deviceâs capabilities. It uses a generic profile to check if a file can be direct played or not. We are hoping to account for the deviceâs capabilities in the next implementation of the feature.For example, devices are starting to support HEVC, but no HEVC content can be synced without transcoding now.
Surely if the PMS knows if content can âdirect playâ on a device, why wouldnât it know if âdirect syncâ is possible? All our media has been encoded to be as compatible as possible with our equipment as our NAS is just not powerful enough and needs no transcoding to play.
Simple solution is to just put a warning regarding selecting âdirect syncâ and let the user decide to select it or not.
Also, please look at being to select versions of media when syncing also. I can currently select a version i.e. directors comments or a lower resolution to watch but when it comes to sync the only choice you get is the highest resolution original.
@âMovieFan.Plexâ , not to push my luck, but it seems this issue has become extremely salient as many people are preparing for holiday travels (when we need to sync for those dark times without constant internet 
). Please please please can we have at least a beta fix before Dec 19th?
It would be a miracle. A miracle on Plex Street, if you will 
@4Meadway said:
Surely if the PMS knows if content can âdirect playâ on a device, why wouldnât it know if âdirect syncâ is possible?
When streaming media, the decision is made by the device itself, so it knows what it can support. When syncing, the decision is made by PMS so the results might be different.
Simple solution is to just put a warning regarding selecting âdirect syncâ and let the user decide to select it or not.
That would work during sync, but later when a user goes to play it back, they might not remember they chose this copy method and will wonder why the file wonât play.
Also, please look at being to select versions of media when syncing also. I can currently select a version i.e. directors comments or a lower resolution to watch but when it comes to sync the only choice you get is the highest resolution original.
Yup. Another feature we hope to be able to include in the next revision of Sync.
@Icy13 said:
@âMovieFan.Plexâ , not to push my luck, but it seems this issue has become extremely salient as many people are preparing for holiday travels (when we need to sync for those dark times without constant internet). Please please please can we have at least a beta fix before Dec 19th?
It would be a miracle. A miracle on Plex Street, if you will
It is very unlikely that a change this significant would occur before the holidays. If you are in a pinch, I recommend opening Plex Web on your mobile browser and using the download option. Now that the mobile app can play files saved on your device, this would be a quicker solution than using Sync. It wonât get organized as nicely but we will still try to match the file and provide a nice preplay page.
+1 on this request.
I bought a lifetime pass, just to find out that one of the features I was looking forward to is useless to me. I, personally, have the technical know how to do a workaround. However, Iâm interested in switching from Kodi specifically for some of the benefits it gives my less-technical family members. To them, this wait time is less comprehensible than a file that wonât play and makes the feature completely irrelevant.
@âMovieFan.Plexâ Thank you for responding to this thread. Does Plex have something like UserVoice? Iâm not seeing one. Iâve invested in Plex for the long haul, Iâd like to have a more effective way to be heard than adding â+1â to a thread.
+1 Is really needed.
@âMovieFan.Plexâ thks!
@âMovieFan.Plexâ said:
If you are in a pinch, I recommend opening Plex Web on your mobile browser and using the download option. Now that the mobile app can play files saved on your device, this would be a quicker solution than using Sync. It wonât get organized as nicely but we will still try to match the file and provide a nice preplay page.
Once again, I want to thank @âMovieFan.Plexâ for being amazingly on the ball with replies. Really salves the burn of this frustrating lack of feature.
Unfortunately, Iâve tried to download to local but now plex wont find the files. A quick search of the forum turned up this thread: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/227431/local-videos-not-working-on-windows-10
So it appears nothing but .mp4 will work. Thatâs kinda a silly limitation aint it? And breaks the work around you mentioned.
File is .mkv format and stored in C:\Users[my user name]\Videos which seems to be what the plex documentaion as well as being properly named.
When I change the file extension to .mp4, the video and local library magically appears (but doesnât play because itâs actually an mkv).
Please help. That thread is from 2016 (and around the holidays, so I figure same problem, same workaround, same disappointment), and still we can only local play mp4???
Oh sorry, I forgot you mentioned Windows 10 in your comment. I wasnât thinking. This section is about Android Mobile and thatâs what I was thinking. The Windows 10 app does not do local playback. It can view videos in your DCIM folder, but the Windows App still has limited codec support. This isnât going to work well for you this way. Now that you have the files saved locally, just use some other regular video player instead of Plex. You will lose the posters and layouts from Plex, but at least the files will play.
Alternatively, since this is a Windows computer, you can install PMS on this machine and point the library to whereever you are downloading them to. Then install and use Plex Media Player on this machine to prevent needing to transcode.
