Disappointed Long-Time User: Features Gone, Price Up, Still No Fix

General Discussions
22

John, I want to keep this thread useful. Your recent posts keep centering on me (“are you back on Plex,” “don’t speak for others”) instead of the open product questions. They don’t include sources or answers, and the “dead horse” framing is inaccurate while there’s still no staff status on the missing client features.

You’re another community member—same as me—and likely don’t have internal visibility into Plex decisions. That’s fine. But replying without new information or an official reference just pulls the thread into meta-debate and away from a resolution.

What would be constructive from you (or anyone) is one of the following:

  • A link to an official page or staff post that states the current status of the missing client features—playlists, Watch Together, local downloads, casting—on native clients (i.e., available / web-only / not planned / under review).

  • A staff quote or roadmap reference confirming whether the web app is the intended home for these management tasks.

  • If none of that is available, leaving space for Plex staff (or someone with sources) to answer so readers get clarity instead of back-and-forth about motives.

I’m speaking for myself and asking Plex for on-the-record answers so people who remain on Plex can plan. If you can contribute those sources, great—please share them. If not, choosing to engage with personal commentary rather than information isn’t helping the thread reach a useful outcome.

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23

I’m with you there, its dark. Substantial layoffs in 2023, fundraising to reach profitability in 2024, and 2025 price/feature gate changes—with limited forward-looking communication—create uncertainty for long-time users.

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24

You have been here long enough to know your questions have been asked before.

I have also been here since 2013.

The questions you are asking have been asked before and for the most part, unanswered,

Good luck with it.

25

But please. Lets not forget the banger of a plex summer blog post

Edit: and saying plex employees are enjoying summer with their families isn’t a valid excuse for blog radio silence since end of march

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26

I actually wonder if part of this is from long time Plex users more used to the highly interactive place this used to be back in the early days,

There were notable changes in this forum a few years back when the company took a different approach to the business.

Frankly, what we used to have in the forum back in the early years was very different to any other software forum. It was indeed unique. That had to change. No one here is entitled to the companies plan. I see the forum closed off more than it should be but I don’t ever see it returning to what it used to be.

27

“It was indeed unique. That had to change.”

:rofl::rofl: God I hope the next blog post doesn’t include anything this jaded

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John, I appreciate your longevity here, but your last two messages don’t engage the topic. They pivot to me and forum history—“this was asked before”—and stop there. No references, no answers; nothing that helps readers understand the current status. That reads as arguing for its own sake and pulls the thread off‑course.

This thread is trying to establish where things actually stand: what changed, why it changed, and whether there’s an official position. Replies without sources or concrete statements leave everyone guessing.

I’m keeping this focused on the issue at hand. If you have substance to add, great—please share it with sources or specifics so readers can verify. If not, I’d appreciate you sitting this one out so the thread can move toward useful, on‑topic information, reduce friction, and leave room for those who can contribute actionable detail.

29

I suspect a vacuum :joy:

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30

I’m breaking a self-imposed ban on myself from posting in these forums, but it is what it is.

First, I want to acknowledge that you’ve been nothing but polite and respectful in your posts. No one can fault you there. It’s very refreshing to not see someone lashing out at folks with differing opinions. Reasonable discourse is, well, reasonable.

I do however have some concerns. Your initial post mentioned nothing about expecting a response from Plex, Inc. It actually seemed more like a venting of frustration and a statement of intent to move away from Plex as a personal media server. However, later you express (in a different post) disappointment that there was no response from Plex. I don’t know how to reconcile the two. And even in this thread you’ve confirmed that you’ve moved on. (And, for the record, I use Jellyfin as a backup to Plex.)

Further, you mention several features removed from Plex (presumably you’re referring to the new experience clients, of which there are currently 4).

Regarding Watch Together, this was expressly explained in a blog post. Their reasoning was explained and the scope of the removal was addressed (new experience clients will no longer support it). That was the official statement. What more are you asking in this regard? There’s a feature request to add it back.

Regarding Playlists, they have not been removed from the new clients. They’re still there, but accessed differently. Instead of a single point of access, they’re accessed via their individual libraries. Do you perhaps mean playlist management? Indeed that’s something that cannot administered via the new experience apps at this time.

I’m not sure what you mean about local downloads either. They’re still supported; but again, it’s different, and evolving. You can now download individual items or seasons (if a series) with the new clients. It’s not as featureful as the older clients (yet) but it hasn’t been “removed.”

As far as casting is concerned, again, it’s not been removed. It’s changed and admittedly it doesn’t work for everyone yet (ironically, Google Chromecast devices seem to be the most problematic), but it’s still there. It works perfectly for me from both an iPhone and Android tablet to my onn puck without issue.

The only feature which has been intentionally removed was Watch Together. For reasons, which you don’t have to agree with. But they did explain them.

Further, what else could you possibly want? A Plex employee stepped into this minefield of a thread to explain that they understand where you’re coming from. They further explained why they can’t comment on specific challenges you posed. Yet you continue to challenge them. They responded in good faith, thanked you for your feedback, acknowledged your contributions, and wished you the best in pursuing alternatives. What else could you possibly need?

Just take the W. You’ve expressed your feelings. You’ve been heard. You’ve been acknowledged. I’d give you a hero cookie, but I’m fresh out (probably only meaningful if you’re Gen X).

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31

Plex has always stated they don’t offer roadmaps, timelines or list features they are working on publicly before they are released. So in that regard they have given you (and everyone else) an answer to the above questions many times over, it’s just a matter of accepting the answer and understanding that they don’t operate the way you wish they would.

I think your questions are perfectly reasonable myself, but Plex has always been very secretive about which features are coming/being worked on or letting users know if removed features are coming back.

I know they said they reversed the decision to remove music from the new experience redesign on TVs which was a good move, but nothing about Watch Together coming back yet.

I feel like the Plex devs are given a really hard time moreso than other companies. And unlike other companies that scrub their company forums of any harsh or critical feedback, Plex pretty much lets users voice all kinds of rants and opinions without deletion. Something you don’t see from the vast majority of companies these days. And If they don’t respond, people make a lot of assumptions about what they’re doing. If they do respond, people say it’s not enough and want them to say something different or go into more detail.

So while I hate the silence at times just like you, I definitely understand why most of the devs keep quiet in these sort of threads. Almost a lose lose situation for them.

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32

Thanks for the considerate tone and for taking the time to pull together and explain the information you shared. I don’t usually post in support forums, but the recent client changes landed squarely on how I use Plex, so I spoke up. I appreciate you engaging thoughtfully and laying things out without turning it into a pile-on.

For context, my setup has long been driven almost entirely from Apple TV. That living-room workflow used to cover everything I needed from the couch. With the new experience, several things I relied on are now either web-only or gone, and that effectively broke my “couch-first” routine. I understand many of these features may be lightly used across the wider audience; I just happen to be one of the folks who used them daily, so the impact feels outsized on my end. I’m not trying to dramatize it—just to explain why I’ve kept asking for specifics.

I’ll also own that I missed some of what was already public. At the same time, other details weren’t easy to surface when I went looking, and that added to the frustration. I’m not blaming individuals for that; it’s just the reality of trying to piece things together from scattered notes while your day-to-day workflow stops fitting. My aim here isn’t to argue—it’s to understand the direction well enough to plan around it without guessing.

My fundamental complaint is simple: features that were present on the big screen—especially creation, management, and editing of playlists—were there, and then they weren’t. That shift matters when your primary device is the TV. I recognize the trade-offs in shipping across platforms and that priorities evolve. Not every feature can live everywhere, and that’s understandable. But when something central to a particular workflow disappears or moves, it’s reasonable for affected users to say, “this changed how I use Plex,” and ask what the intended path forward is.

Thanks again for engaging respectfully and for presenting the information clearly. I’m happy to acknowledge what I missed, and I’ll hold to what I experienced. If Plex can provide a clear statement about where management features belong today and whether any of them are expected to return to the TV apps, I’ll adjust accordingly. In the end, I’m just trying to keep this constructive and get to the practical guidance that lets each of us plan our setups with eyes open.

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33

That’s interesting. An ex-employee confirmed on Reddit that after the last months new layoffs this team that you speak about dropped from 3 people to only 2 people.

Since you believe in this so much, perhaps you can divulge why this team keeps shrinking. You also told me some time ago in the fireside chat that this team was “healthy”. Do you still feel the same? Last time I heard Plex had about 60 employees.

34

Ok, now we are talking! I want to start by saying how much I am appreciating the discourse here. We won’t all always like what is going on but this is an amazing community and it is great to see conversation happening in a calmer and more upbeat manner.

I will start by saying thank you to @pshanew as this post is very well researched and written and covers a lot of the open items. I will just make a few minor clarifications:

  • for Watch Together, it was mentioned as “removed”. We didn’t remove it from any clients, instead, at that point in time, made a decision to not build it on the new clients. It still exists and works on anything that isn’t updated to the new experience yet. As for future state? The outcry has definitely been heard. While it is not a current development or project target for us, if we were set on a message like “definitely not” then I would state as much, so I hope that we can build this again in the future

  • on downloads, I have commented on the state of downloads in the past. I am also happy to provide a new update here in that I was part of a project meeting this week about improving the current state of downloads with enhancements and we also started talking about adding in more of the “smarts” around downloads which would get us much closer to the previous experience, albeit on a much firmer and more reliable foundation

  • Casting is also an area that we are aware of and are working on. I am not part of the group working on this, but it is a known focus area

Almost forgot - there were a few specific questions from here:

  • Is making the web app the primary tool for tasks like queue management the official, intended direction for Plex going forward?
    No. While it is currently in that state today, our longer-term intent is to provide a unified management experience that not only includes things like queue (aka playlist) management but also server management that would be available on clients with decent input functionality (the wording here may read as odd, but I simply mean that TV clients are a massive challenge for management functions due to their limited input mechanisms. Aka remotes suck for typing). We will need some time to build this out and also have to hit a parity point across clients first with the new experience, but I am very excited to get started on this intent

  • Is there a plan to restore these management features to the native clients, or should users adapt to the new web-dependent workflow?
    See answer above - but today the web workflow is the best area to manage things like playlists and this will change in the future (meaning: not in 2025)

Last comment here, regarding roadmaps. I would love to get something out for all of us to cuss and discuss on here :grin: One of our biggest challenges, and something that I believe sets us apart from other personal media solutions, is that we provide a comprehensive set of clients across a HUGE amount of devices. We also work really hard to make the experience consistent across all of those devices. Until we have that point of parity, it is very challenging to present any new features, projects, or targets. You can probably guess why, but without resources to work on them (due to our ongoing parity work), conveying intent with any form of timeline is probably a bad idea. However, my commitment is that I will continue working to improve communication and give more clarity and hopefully at some point we have something that resembles a roadmap published somewhere. :plexheart:

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35

I think this is not just a problem with Plex it’s more a general problem in software development.
I’m not a programmer at all but I noticed that lately many large software companies don’t do enough quality control. Often it works a bit like this:

The company announces a “cool new feature” in spring that is coming “later this year.” But you don’t know WHEN this happens: Because this is such a flexible phrase it could be next week or December 31.
Or they announce something like “over xyz new features” and bring the users to the “I can’t wait to use this” excitement. And after a while they say something like “Sorry, we have to move this exciting new feature to “early next year” (which is again a definition problem: what do you mean by “early next year?” January, February, March April or April 30th? :wink:

I think sometimes a general “more to come” could be better than making too much promises months or years ahead. Because if you know what is about to come the expectations of the user rise and so does the pressure on the developers to make it before the internal deadline. And if the time is to tight you have to make compromises to ether release a just xy% finished product (less than 100%) or leave the excited users “hanging” for more days/weeks/months/years.
Unfortunately most of the time the broken or not carefully enough tested features are pushed out (following by countless patches to make it halfway usable.)

But I totally understand that for business reports or “stock holder conferences” it raises the value if you could mention the “over x-hundereds new features.” And cynical spoken: a broken product is better than nothing! :adhesive_bandage:

@McWanke
No offense to you! :grinning_face: I really appreciate your comments here and how you interact with us. :plexheart: I just wanted to add my thoughts how I noticed software development in general the last ~15 years.

Greetings from Switzerland

36

I appreciate that you’re telling me that (almost) every post and bug report on the forums gets read, and there’s not necessarily enough bandwidth to respond to them all, and I appreciate that the thread we find ourselves in is fundamentally about product direction rather than bugs, but just from my perspective, it’s difficult for me to feel like anyone is reading the posts I make, which is why I stopped making them and started just agreeing with the large numbers of people complaining that their voice wasn’t heard:

https://forums.plex.tv/t/war-and-peace-1956-has-no-poster-art/887277/6

https://forums.plex.tv/t/the-bride-wore-black-1968-missing-box-art/894759/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/requiem-for-a-heavyweight-1962-missing-box-art-by-default/891585/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/the-little-foxes-1941-has-no-poster-art/889456/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/detective-story-1951-has-no-poster-art/889453/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/bug-capitalization-for-names-with-internal-caps-is-incorrect-in-movies-shows-in-media-library/889120/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/the-bird-with-the-crystal-plumage-1970-has-no-poster-art/887841/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/metadata-description-for-english-teacher-2024-tv-series-sucks/887271/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/paris-when-it-sizzles-1964-missing-poster-by-default/884872/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-robin-and-marian-1976-is-bafflingly-small/884871/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/what-ever-happened-to-baby-jane-1962-missing-box-art/883527/4

Release date for The Color of Pomegranates (1969) badly wrong - #2 (I believe this one was eventually fixed when I created a separate thread to report 25 different obvious release date errors)

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-secrets-lies-1996-is-a-poster-of-a-minor-character-font-also-clunky/883211/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/balance-1989-listed-as-releasing-in-2003/883091/4

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-groundhog-day-is-an-atrocity/882478/5

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-the-prince-of-egypt-is-just-a-poorly-scaled-and-centered-logo/882535/7

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-toy-story-3-odd/882530/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-tootsie-has-incorrectly-kerned-font/882531/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/default-poster-for-scent-of-a-woman-has-obvious-compositing-error/882536/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/bug-sort-by-release-date-fails-when-exact-release-date-not-set/804318/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/bug-adding-new-episode-to-show-in-collection-removes-show-from-collection/750846/2

https://forums.plex.tv/t/bug-report-presence-of-c608-stream-in-file-causes-hard-crash-on-nvidia-shield-tv-player/750444/3

I think one of the reasons this is annoying is because the metadata stuff does not require code changes, localization changes, UI/UX changes, and I’m actually willing to fix all of these myself but the choice to do the Plex/Gracenote metadata actively prevents me from fixing the issues using the user-editable metadata sources.

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37

Not that it makes your situation any better/worse, but can apps like Emby/JellyFin scrape the metadata needed for the poster art of items you’re missing? I can’t seem to realize how it can if so, unless the matching confidence level of movies/tv shows is more open-handed.

38

Yeah I’ve written my own scrapers and cleaned up my library (and yes Jellyfin has better scraping because it uses TMDB rather than maintaining its own piss-poor metadata database, something I’ve brought up with Plex dozens of times in my post history). The entire point of my complaining is to try to help other users.

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39

Unfortunately, I’ve resigned to accepting that Doctorow’s “enshittification” applies here, as it does to much. Companies sacrifice the good and the stable for the new, regularly, to the detriment of the user experience. Every time Gmail does a UI update, UX goes to hell. The enterprise VM platform we use at work is completely trashing their UI and making data harder to get to, which is its entire point in existing in the first place.

Here, if we look back further:

  • Plex removed podcasts. This was simple, and worked, nothing that required hundreds of hours maintaining code for. It was great being able to keep my phone and desktop in sync with listening. Lost that.
  • They munged up… I forget the old names now, but when “Continue Watching” became the standard for tracking viewing and the old method was merged in with something else, Continue only held like 4 or 6 entries, until people complained. This is not a matter of “what works for one user doesn’t work for others” or “the good being the enemy of the perfect”, this was simply a massively myopic move on Plex’s part. No concept that multiple people in a family may watch a few shows, or that one person might watch more than a handful. What they had before worked and worked fine, then a major code change and UI change and then it worked for no one. The threads were on fire over this. Why do something that would be so universally hated? Only answers are “willful malice” or “zero clue, and zero care, about what users what want and need”.
  • Recent change to mobile client. OMG. Garbage! My phone UI looked like my desktop, which looked like the client on the Fire Stick. See, that’s awesome. Or, was awesome. uniformity in UI across all platforms! Sweet! Until… they took the mobile UI and put it through a garbage disposal and gave us the sludge that came out. Enshittification at its finest.
  • Several server updates ago, some of my libraries stopped being read into Continue Watching. I know that Plex is swirling the drain, didn’t both opening any support requests. I’m not going to back up and rebuild my DB, and most importantly, I shouldn’t have to.
  • I have occasional issue with adding something to a folder, a 2nd version of the original (recoded differently, higher quality sound, whatever) and the added file doesn’t show in the UI. Watching console logs doesn’t show it added. This is not a matter of ‘edition’ tagging, which I largely never do; this method has worked for years, but on recent versions of the server code it’s becoming more and more unreliable. Have not bothered to open a support request for this, either. (Why would I? I see more problems introduced than fixed, it’s not worth my time to engage with “support” that doesn’t really support.)

Add in the multi-platform junk, the ability to link in subscription services… cheap grabs for “user retention” like the stupid games Facebook etc attempts to do to increase platform engagement (hellloooo, investors! We have metrics, and the graphs go up to the right!). Add in the live streaming, which if this were about personal media at its finest, why? Streaming from hundreds of outside channels is not personal media by any definition.

Everything here screams that vision has been lost, no real roadmap exists, and it’s half busy work and half throwing spaghetti at the wall; the output we’re receiving at least matches these observations, if they’re arriving at them somehow else then that’s really freaking bad. This is not said to challenge any employee to speak up and defend/prove a roadmap, but what I’m seeing shows zero direction, shows more broken code, show’s awful UI decisions.

Plex could have left well enough alone years ago, left podcasts, didn’t bring in outside services, or live channels, didn’t muck with viewing history, didn’t neuter the mobile client, just left it as it was and it would’ve been fine, IMO, and also saved a ton of money in developer salaries. I don’t know who they’re thinking they’ll attract in with the product in the frenetic state it’s in today, but I don’t think I would be buying into the platform if I were just now looking for my first in-house streaming server.

I managed to roll back my mobile client, and I’m not doing server upgrades any more. Between the removal of good features (ignorant of user needs, as above), scope creep light years beyond personal media streaming, and the general and overall enshittification of the platform, no. No more updates.

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40

Adding to the choir here. I’m a long time user (since 2015), PlexPass subscriber, and Plex evangelist among colleagues, friends, and family. From a features perspective, I’m most disappointed about the mobile device functionality and stability, especially when it comes to downloads. Overall, I’m more disappointed in the company and what appears to be the new policies when it comes to the products delivered.

On Mobile, the old download system wasn’t perfect, but it worked most of the time. The new download system is garbage - it is unstable, it frequently times out on my devices, and is frustrating to use when it comes to TV shows and multiple movies.

When I say policy, I look at this as the way management is running the business - someone has made a conscious decision to do this. Based on what I’m reading in the forums over and over about different platform experiences after each platform gets an update: Platform gets a poorly tested MVP update, functionality goes away, people get frustrated. Rinse, repeat for the next platform, rather than going back to substantially repair the issues with the missing functionality or bad UI choices.

If this were a one-off issue, I’d liken it to an honest mistake, but if it keeps happening over and over again, that is bad policy, which points to bad leadership.

There hasn’t been an update to the blog since March; same with the news section. Prior to 2025, there was generally a steady stream of updates on the blog - tips and tricks, new functionality. To me, it looks like the Plex organization has hit the enshitify button and gone for the “maximize investor value” route rather than focus providing a quality product and doing a good job at engaging with customers.
With everything going on, I now wonder if a private equity firm bought the company and is now running through the standard destructive playbook…

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