Does anyone have a solution for this? I want to have the family log in and watch stuff and have it auto-delete a days after it’s played. The settings say this is tied to the owner account. Ok. And then I see a request to add it for managed users that hasn’t been implemented yet. If I put a pin for the owner account I have to give that to my family, which doesn’t keep them out if the settings part then. So then do I have a way to protect the settings of the server from being mucked with by curious children and still let the family watch shows and have them auto-delete? Basically, can I have a watch account for the deleting and admin account? Or can I add a password just for the settings but not the watching? (Pretty sure the answer is no to that last one, just a shot in the dark)
When I run into situations like this I feel like people at Plex are all bachelors or the people there that have families aren’t dogfooding their own software
There isn’t a way to do this. The idea is that managed users shouldn’t be deleting stuff. What if you have many users and 1 deletes something before another person is able to. Or what if that user deletes everything so even the admin doesn’t get a chance to see it.
Yeah, I get that some users can delete them out from others users. My family could do that with the TiVo and Windows Media Centers where there were no users so I don’t see it as a problem that needed fixing I guess.
Can you explain the “Plex” way you intend me to use the DVR then? Here’s my requirements. Let me know which ones I can’t meet or how I’d have to do this to meet them.
I don’t want anyone deleting Movies, Music or TV that I ripped ( I think this means I can’t turn off media deletion)
I don’t want to keep shows around wasting space that I no longer intend to watch. ( Sometimes I don’t get around to watching a show for a while and then decide I don’t like it)
I don’t want to automatically delete a show after a period of time (sometimes I don’t get around to watching a show for a while and then watch it)
I don’t want to go to the server filesystem or admin panel and spend time doing spring cleaning of all the old shows that were watched. (I don’t want to add another task to my schedule)
I don’t want to have kids messing around in the settings and then try to figure out if the reason something isn’t working is because a setting was changed or if it’s a server update I just did.
1 and 5 can be addressed by not giving others access to your admin account.
2 - 4, not sure how PMS could accomplish this without being able to read your mind.
The closest option I can think will require some manual work from you. Do not use your admin account to watch stuff but just for administering PMS. Set your TV shows to automatically remove files after being watched. You then (using your admin account) mark shows/episodes as watched. These will then get removed according to that setting. that setting is per show so you can control which shows this will apply to.
That “read your mind” remark was kind of dismissive. I was listing out parameters of my situation for what I want to do. Number 3 explains that auto deleting after 30 days won’t be a solution either.
Your solution sounds a lot like what I didn’t want to do in #4, but I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond.
Still, just from a security perspective it seems weird to require some feature be used as a superuser that isn’t related to maintenance of the system. And not even have an option where someone’s situation of not deleting it out from under someone else doesn’t even apply
Sorry not meant to be dismissive, just realistic. You want to delete some things but not others. The only Plex mechanism to delete stuff automatically is using that setting I mentioned, but it does need to be set per tv show. Plex would have no idea if you wanted to delete something because you were done with the episode or if you hated the show and just wanted it gone.
To be clear, the option to delete an item after being watched doesn’t wait 30 days. I think you are referring to the other “keep” option which doesn’t take into account watched status. I am specifically referring to this setting.
