BUG: Exclude Labels for Users Excluding ALL Content

[TVBanks98]

Server Version#: 1.32.3.7162
Player Version#:various (latest updates)

I recently started adding “Labels” to items in my “Movies” with the intent of Excluding access for users to whom I’ve shared content. I setup three Labels and set one user to Exclude movie content with those specific labels.

Plex Web
Manage Library Access
click User
Restrictions tab
Movies section → Edit
fill in Exclude Labels from the pull-down list and Save

When that user opens their client and navigates to Movies → Library, which is set to display Folders, they see no content at all. If I remove the exclusion labels from their Remote Access Restrictions they can again see the Movie folder content.

I have tried with one Exclusion Label as well as multiple. Both scenarios exhibit the issue. The “Collection” and “Category” views appear to work normally.

For clarity, I have “100” movies and only “2” of them have labels. I want to exclude those 2 from view by certain users.

I have seen this on the Android TV app as well as the web app on MS Edge.

[FordGuy61]

Not a bug. By design.

See this thread:

Problem of access to a folder on Plex

an exclusion is a restriction. if you exclude something from a user then they cannot view folders The reason is this. Say you label some the movie Nymphomaniac with the a label “AdultOnly” to y hide it from a child’s account but they had access to rest of library. then even though they could not see the actual video they could see the title of the folder which could be some overtly sexual title like Nymphomaniac or worse… This is why folders are hidden when there are any restrictions

And a feature request to change how it currently works:

Folder Restriction

There’s a bug on plex when you restrict access to a file, video for example, you can no longer see any other folder which is problematic when you need the library view (folder). The only solution would be to be able to restrict a folder and all its contents and no longer restrict video by video or any other file types supported by plex.

[TVBanks98]

If the attribute is on the file itself, it should affect that file only and not the entire folder. I would request the feature enhancement to work in that manner. I’ll look for that post and comment there. Thanks.

[dbirch]

Plex isnt designed to function as a file explorer, it is a Media Manager/Streaming tool.

Plex thinks of things as Shows or Movies. Which might be a single file or multiple files. Tags, labels, and what not are applied to the “Show” or “Movie” not to files. Plex is designed to abstract the file system out of the equation, and to Present a “Media Library”

[TVBanks98]

Yes, and one metadata element PMS stores on the individual media assets (movies) is the user-defined Label. Using that to include or exclude individual movies from view would fall under library management. The functionality exists, but it does not behave as one would be led to assume it does. Even in “Library” mode (for Movies), PMS displays content grouped by the media asset. where the tag/label is added.