I understand that in many instances, it is better if only the admin can delete recordings, however I am the admin, but use that account just for real admin stuff and a managed user account for general watching. I would never have ‘automatic deletion when watched’ as a general setting as most media I want to keep, but some shows I want to delete once watched and if not logged in as the admin user, I cannot delete anything.
Ah you say, just switch to the admin user and then deletion is possible. However there’s a fundamental flaw with that argument. Once I switch to the admin user, I NO LONGER KNOW WHICH EPISODES HAVE BEEN WATCHED.
There seems to be a huge gap in the Plex developers thought processes here as that is a fundamental and pretty obvious ‘gotcha’. Have they never noticed this problem? Or did they notice but think it make sense in some warped way. Or worse, are they aware of this crass stupidity and simply don’t care and can’t be bothered to do anything about it?
There needs to be some solution to this, so that whoever is actually able to delete recordings can see which ones have been watched and by whom. Only then can reliable decisions be made about what should be deleted.
I would, but apparently no votes left. No idea why as I don’t recall much voting. Or any at all recently. So a simply daft restriction that limits the usefulness of the forum. Well done Plex.
Yes, true, but it’s a terrible faff to have to do that. It is a useful feature, but even when you can see a list of episodes viewed by the selected user, how do you then delete them. Click each one to open that episode’s information, select delete and then return to the viewed list and repeat for each episode to be deleted and if you’re not careful the dashboard has reset to the defaults so you have to select the user and date range all over again.
That’s a really tedious way to have to do it and there’s no way to simultaneously see if anyone else has watched a particular episode.
What is required is for the admin to be able to view movies or episodes of a show and see who has watched them. Only then can it be determined what should be deleted and that view should also allow each list item (episode, movie whatever) to be simply selected and then to be able to delete all selected items in one action.
I realise multiple users makes it complicated, but currently Plex does a poor job of this by not showing all the required information in one place. So you have to go backwards and forwards between different ‘views’ and hope you can remember what was in the others.
Plex’s school report for this would be ‘Must try harder’.
Fair enough. However, the title you have used does not really express what you are looking to do.
I think ^^ is better. If you’d like to edit your original post to reflect this better, I can change this thread into a feature request so others can vote for it.
Well I think the requirement is twofold. The admin user needs the above facility for better general maintenance, but non admin users should also have some facility to delete their own recordings.
Just like any multi-user Operating System, each user should have autonomy over their own files, but the admin user also has an overriding control of all files. This is pretty fundamental to such Operating Systems. No need for Plex to have to re-invent the wheel. Just follow what has proven over the years to be the right way to do it.
Imagine if unix, BSD, MacOS, Linux etc. did not allow individual users to delete their own files and only the admin user could delete any files. I think you can see what a problem that would be.
Plex needs a better facility for the admin user to be able to see what’s been watched, by who and delete if required, but also for other (non admin) users to be able to delete their own (and no other) recordings.
I would also suggest that any recording displays who set up the recording. Just a simple ‘tag’ to show whose recording it is. That would make it clear for all.
Just like to point out that I started this thread. This forum has recently been messing me around and not letting me log in. So I switched browser to try that and inadvertently logged in as a different user (I appear to have 2 logins for the forum, but only use UKenGB). Anyway, ‘fernhouse’ is also me.
BTW, I did point out the problem, but nothing came of that. However, since Safari has the problem and even Chrome sometimes, but neither did originally, I can only assume something has changed and is not right in this forum’s code. Either that or Apple and Google have both screwed up. What do you think.
There’s an issue with this. Recordings are not tracked as to who set the recording so there isn’t a way to “delete their own recording”. What if another user also likes that recording and doesn’t want it removed. This is why it’s left up to the admin.
I agree, there could be better ways for an admin to know who is watching what.
Yes, please change this to a ‘feature request’.
Your original post isn’t very clear so it may actually be better if you start a new feature request. It will also clear up your 2 account issue.
Plex needs a better facility for the admin user to be able to see what’s been watched, by who and delete if required
Include specifics on how this could be done. “Better” is very subjective.
Ok, well first of all, Plex needs to implement media ownership and start tracking who set a recording. Cannot be that hard and provides the needed ownership info to allow users to delete their own recordings. Obviously unix’ file system has a complex system of file permissions, but Plex just needs to track who recorded what so this much needed facility can be implemented.
Also, admin needs to be able to manually set this ‘ownership’ for any media file, with a default specified for any new media that is simply added rather than recorded.
With regard to admin’s ability to view and delete recordings, I think I already explained. They should be able to see what has been watched and by who and once recording ownership is implemented, whose recording it is and be able to select any of those in the current list and delete them all in one go.
When we just had video tapes to record on, it was all a lot simpler. But now we have multi-user digital recording systems like Plex and so management of those recordings needs to take that into account. It all needs to be more like unix’ file system.
I would then suggest how great it would be to allow ‘rules’ to be specified, so for example any movie, show, episode to be automatically deleted once a specified group of users had each watched it. But let’s get the basics working first.
Only admin able to delete is, sorry, the lazy answer.
