The new Windows app is great, however I can’t change the Downloads location for offline viewing. The previous Windows app (Windows Store) had the option and it looks like it may have been removed.
I agree, this needs to be implemented. I have a small SSD as my boot drive, and the new Plex app currently stores downloaded media on the C drive in the AppData folder. I want to be able to change the download location to my data storage drive where I have multiple terabytes of space available, and I can’t do that with a symbolic link since symbolic links don’t work across drives.
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Just tested this out myself. On Windows 10 the symbolic link does work across drives, no problem. I downloaded a 5gb file to make sure. I moved the original AppData/Local/Plex folder from my C drive to a renamed folder on my D drive, created the symbolic link in a command prompt in admin mode, then opened up the Plex Desktop App and started the download. Drive space usage on my C drive did not change, only the D drive. In File explorer, the path will look like it’s still in the C drive when you are browsing in the symbolic link folder, but if you right click a blank area in the folder and check the properties, it will confirm the real target location is the other drive.
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This is a great work around until they bring back the official solution.
Thanks!
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Has this been implemented yet? Just wasted 10 minutes searching the settings for a way to change it.
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Please provide more detailed steps as to how you accomplished this. I also have a small SSD OS drive and a large storage hard drive. I setup the LinkToFolder after moving the AppData/Local/Plex folder to my D drive and the link command completed successfully but when I open the plex app again, it just creates a new plex folder rather than utilizing symbolic link.
Thanks
The latest version broke the existing sym link!
This is a fairly good guide https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/
Any updates on this? Really frustrating only being able to download to the install directory on my Surface Book main hard drive (which is nearly full) when I have a 1TB SD Card nearly empty.
Soonish - it would be nice to be able to ‘unpin’ it from the sidebar, since the chances of me ever using it are 0%. I have scoured the interface and see no way to unpin it, like I can with Playlists, for instance.
any news on this?
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I was able to get this.
You need to close the plex app.
Move whatever you have in “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Sync” to the bigger drive. example: D:\Plex\Sync
Once the transfer is complete. You need to create a link. The command for that link (need admin level command prompt).
Command: mklink /J “D:\Plex\Sync” “C:\Users\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\appdata\local\plex\plex media server\Sync”
This will create the symbolic link in the appdata folder, it will look like a shortcut. Make sure the folder Plex\Sync exists on your other drive, then open the symbolic link in your appdata to test and make sure it works. If it works then you are pretty much all set! If you had to move existing offline items in the first step, make sure they are under the new folder in the correct directory format, should look like D:\Plex\Sync\1 etc.
These instructions assume you know what your user name is, and the secondary disk is using D for the drive letter. So please change the items here accordingly to match YOUR setup.
Hope this helps!
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That command had the link and target the wrong way round. If D: driveIs the one to be used for storage the command needs to be:
mklink /J “C:\Users\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\appdata\local\plex\plex media server\Sync” “D:\Plex\Sync”
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on windows 10, the /D flag worked for me, instead of /J
also, as pointed by RobGodfrey, the order of the link and target is reversed in your command.
chears.
Can someone please explain to me how to change my download and sync location on my MacBook since these threads are speaking of a Windows computer? Thanks very much. I appreciate it.
Hello. Would anyone be able to speak to my question above? Thank you.
Is the choice of Download location ever going to be implemented?
I am not interested in having to program symbolic links, just a built in section like what use to be in the original app
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I’m amazed how bad the Windows version of Plex still is a year after it was released.
When it was first released it was clearly a beta given how much functionality it was missing but the fact that a year on you still can’t select a download location really does show that useful development on Windows has pretty much been abandoned.
Looks like I’ll still be using the old Windows app which, terrible as it is, still works better than the new version for offline viewing.
Thanks all. This thread really helped me out. I was getting the folder locations back to front.
One thing to note, you must delete the “Sync” folder in C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Local\Plex\Plex Media Server\ prior to doing the mklink or you will get an error.
My command prompt was like this and works like a charm:
C:\>mklink /J "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Plex\Plex Media Server\Sync" "D:\Plex Downloads"
Also, if you make a mistake, just delete the folder that is created and start again.
Cheers!
+1 for this being a built in function in Plex for windows.
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Hey all, I created a feature request for changing the downloads folder location to be built into Plex. Please vote!
