I wish it was possible to set “friendly” names and icons I recognize for “friends” that use my Plex server. You know, those people with their own accounts and received an invite from me? Few (if any) of mine have chosen to set anything (or what they’ve set doesn’t pass to my server) so I see user names like xyzzy3.1415 which aren’t especially useful. The icons are just a letter on a colored background, but most of them appear to be a letter that doesn’t seem related to the user’s real name, so I’ve no idea who’s who.
I wish Plex would let me choose my own display names and icons for friends.
Is this a possibility or has the request already been rejected in the past?
That one is marked as “implemented,” but it only appears to be implemented in the Android and iOS mobile apps. It’s not in Plex Web, or the Plex for Windows apps.
Maybe some folks that still actually use Windows or the web app to manage their server will vote for this and maybe the Masters of Plex will notice. Then again, for the past few years it has seemed to me that attracting new users is significantly more important to Plex than supporting long time, existing users. I can only hope.
To be clear, users can set their own alias. An admin of a server cannot set the alias for users that are shared. Plex does not have any plans to implement that type of feature if that is what you are asking for.
You should see the alias in Web and Plex for Windows.
I don’t usually complain here, but this is pure ignorance on Plex’ part. Only those of us who run servers care about usernames, because we are the ones who actually see them. Regular users, those we share our stuff with, never look at their names. And why would they?
Pure ignorance or just a different point of view. Either way: What real benefit would you have if you could set the names correctly besides from a better overview?
Pure ignorance, actually, because a lot of us have been asking for aliases for a long time, and what we got with the now “implemented” feature of the other thread is not satisfactory. Same as the current Watchlist is not what most of us had in mind, but that’s a topic for a different thread
Come on, instead of ranting here you could at least try to answer the question. I know it’s frustrating when you don’t always get what you want, but that’s the way it is. If you want to convince Plex to do something the way you want it done, you have to sell it to them. They won’t implement something just for you.
Plex is excellent at tagging content with various metadata, tags, playlists, collections, and even custom artwork - but I can’t tag my users with any kind of custom information and that’s where Plex wants to leave it?
My media can’t change without me at least allowing something to change it, but if one of my invited users wants to be PipeStream one day and IStreamSandwich the next - how can I keep track of who that person was? I don’t seem to be able to even see the email address I used to invite that user, being able to tag them with a “Chuck” that only I can see solves the problem entirely.
Setting your friends’ user accounts’ aliases is not really the ask. No one wants to take away users’ ability to set their own alias. What server admins want is the ability to assign an internal nickname - separate from the users’ alias - to each user. I look at my list of friends, and their aliases or email addresses often do not tell me who they are. Over time, you lose track what represents who. Or never had it. It doesn’t seem like a huge body of work. There already has to be cached specific information for each user sitting on the plex server or admin’s account. I would find this VERY useful, because I think most users don’t bother with aliases, or understand how they are set. I only have good friends on my server, and I have no idea which user represents whom. Plex should fix this.
@dream-king Very well said! Much more clear than my original, bumbling request! [Not joking, I really do think you said what I was trying to say better than I did, thanks for clearing things up.]
Yes @dream-king
After some time passes, I forget who @king-rub-butter is. I’d like to be able to put my own note in there, so I know @king-rub-butter is actually ScottJ.
Any news from Plex on addressing/adding this feature?
When you’re sharing your media library with family and friends who use random usernames/email names, this isn’t very helpful to the server owner when they are trying to recall who they are.
We aren’t asking to change their personal account name but instead having a “nickname” feature used only for the server owner.
I think this request should be easy to implement in backend, and actually really needed to identify the friends and family members. If they registered with google, they appear just with numbers; from the server admin side, it is an headache to manage the users like this…
Having just texted a friend about the show I thought they were watching (they were not) because I was wrong about who was watching, I would like to also add my $0.02 on this feature request.
The ability to have a LOCAL nicknames for users, as well as local Avatars would be awesome. They could be linked to the account on the backend, so if the user changed their username/avatar, it INFORMED you and let you choose if you want to keep your localized nickname/avatar or switch to their new one(s).
I will sometimes ping my friends “Oh, you are watching (this show on my plex)… you should also check out (this other show) because they have similar vibes…”
texting the right friend, without having to realize they have changed their email would be super
helpful
Very surprised that this is not something that already exists. Not having this feature has caused me plenty of annoyance when I have 3 different Mike’s that are on my server and I’m trying to remember which is which.
Anytime you make a change to your server configuration, for example, adding a new directory with media that you only want certain people to have access to, it becomes complicated when you can’t identify who is who.
Also, having to reach out to friends or family that use the server to ask them to set an Alias to something that works for me seems ridiculous.
Should definitely have an option to set local aliases for users. That way admins can manage access better.
Got my gf as shared user in home, have that full, long name in the quick-selection sucks. Got my 4 stepbrothers in there, which I can’t distinguish. This is ridiculous, this would be such a minor change in the backend.
Sure it doesn’t bring plex revenue, but I bring my folks to my server, and everyone buys the app.
I was looking for a way to manipulate the DB of Plex to at least get the right names, just to find these threads, implying that this function hasn’t been implemented for years. Ridiculous, even more than spotify not allowing to stream local songs locally to sonos.
At least Tautulli let me do this, an OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.
I have many friends whose usernames are meaningless numbers and who haven’t set profile pictures, making it difficult for me to distinguish them. Since I can’t force them to change their usernames or set profile pictures, it would be much better if I could customize friendly names for them on my end.
Could we please have a description or note field where we can enter a name to associate the account with. Many times, the username does not remotely match the person’s name and it’s easy to forget after some time.
[Not joking, I really do think you said what I was trying to say better than I did, thanks for clearing things up.]