I looked through the FAQ’s and forums but could not find what I was looking for.
I have not used Plex before and I just paid for a lifetime Plex pass. I plan to use UltraSeedBox to host the Plex Media Server until my home internet is upgraded to fibre in about 3 months time.
I would like to share my movie library with family members (all adults) who don’t live with me but I am unsure of the best way to do this. If they each create a free Plex account will they have full access to my library or do they need to pay a subscription fee as well?
I am leaning towards a Managed User account for each of them, but my understanding is this will not give them some of the benefits that come with having your own account, like a Watch Later list. Is that actually useful? They are not tech savvy and will not create or share their own libraries so this might be the better option
They travel a lot so it has to be easy to download for offline use. Any suggestions?
I should have checked first but hopefully, they will not have to pay for Plex as well.
Remote access per se is not tied to the Plex Pass.
You can go either way. If you create managed users, they can use the Plex mobile apps on Android and iOS for free.
However, the absolute number of managed users is limited to 14.
And they will all appear in your apps in the ‘User switcher’ https://support.plex.tv/articles/204232453-fast-user-switching/
So each of them can switch to another user’s account. Unless they all have a PIN set.
So I rather recommend you to make them regular (‘friend’) users.
As such, they can use all the Plex apps for free, except the mobile apps. If they want to use these, they’ll have to pay for them (this is a one-off payment, not a subscription).
Thank you for the prompt response OttoKerner. Very impressive.
I only have 4 other family members so going off what you said, I will try managed users first as they each have iPads and offline content is important. As I get more familiar with Plex I can then start moving them across to their own Plex accounts.
This may be difficult to manage, because by then they may already have accumulated their own ‘played’ history. And that is very difficult to move to a new user account.
Should you later decide that it is too much hassle to have them in your plex home, you can simply remove them from the home. But they will remain ‘friend’-type users and this way their ‘played’ history is retained.
