I am thinking of moving from Kodi to a plex server. One thing I really like with Kodi is that I can limit user access to specific folders. For example, when my kids log in, the only movies in their library are those in Kids Movies folder. The only tv shows are located in Kids TV. Where as I have access to Dad Movies and Kids Movies.
Can I do the same with plex? Can I set it up so a person has to log in and depending on the user they have access only to specific folders and files?
you can define access for Friends (having their own account) or Managed Uses (“Plex Home”, requiring Plex Pass)… this will allow you to define permissions per server, library.
When you have defined permissions, you can also apply restrictions, e.g. giving access only to PG and PG-13 movies, or by only showing movies you specifically labelled.
You can find more details in the related support articles:
I noticed this was on Plex Server. I have only local content I want Plex to organize. I want to have 2 user accounts (plex home seems to be able to do that if I buy premium) and do the above with those accounts BUT not on Plex Media Server, rather I want to do it on the Plex Player App on my Roku tv. From what I read, it appears (I still need to test) that the Plex Player App will play local content as well as streams from a server. If that is true I would like to set up my player to access my local content while at the same time locking down one users ability to add a server.
Can’t edit the above to ask this question.
Can I restrict not by labels or ratings, but by location within a file structure? I would like to indicate anything within Folder TV -> Kids can be accessed by that user
I believe you’re referring to the Plex client for Android which can also play content from the local file system. However I’m not sure it’ll actually organize any of those…
If you want to go to Plex, you should consider to setup the server app. There’s some nice overviews / guides in the Plex support area explaining the ecosystem, how it works, how to structure your media for best results with the automatic organization and how to actually set it up:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/getting-started/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/media-preparation/
(media preparation might seem a little over the top but it’s definitely worth following their naming guidelines!)
Restrictions by folder are not possible. In that case I would personally go with an own library linking your kids folder. You can have many libraries of the same media type and give your kids access to only those they’re supposed to see.
Reaffirming the response from tom80H: The cleanest way to handle this need, is to define separate libraries for each set of content.
For example, in addition to my standard “TV Shows” folder/library (which I and my wife have access to), I also have a “Children’s TV” folder/library (with the expected structure underneath). This contains the separate set of age-appropriate shows for my child - who has been granted access to them - but who has NOT been granted access to the main “TV Shows” library. Plex makes this easy to setup and manage - the only “added effort” is just structuring the separate set of items, under the separate library’s source folder.
Coupled with ratings and tag restrictions for the “Movies” area (which I didn’t want to manage separately in this same manner, but could have), this works like a charm, and allows for my child to only see the items they should be able to access.
