I am looking for the best way to set this up. I will outline my ideal and the problems I am having afterwards.
I have 1 plex server with a plex pass. I share the pass with my kids / wife via guest accounts. The media library splits the content via tags, each movie / TV show gets Tagged with the set of tags for the people whose libraries it should show up on. And then there is a family account with the generic stuff anyone may want. There are some additional movies / TV shows that have no tags, like that haven’t been sorted out, that I don’t want any of the accounts to see / have access to except me as the plex passholder.
When someone wants to install plex on a new device, they need the plex pass holder’s email and password to log in. This I don’t really like giving out. Plus once they use it to log in, they have full access to the entire library, including the uncategorized content. Once they pick a guest user, they need to use a pin to get back to the default main plex pass account library, so it is fine afterwards. But this is annoying.
I also need to be able to do fast user switching on Apple TVs (my main viewing option) and iPhones. This currently works with the sub accounts currently.
I’ve been trying to think of possible solutions.
Solution 1) Purchase multiple plex pass accounts, one for each person. Then just share the library + tag like I am doing for sub accounts to the other plex accounts. That seems like it might work, but A) I don’t know if fast user switching would work, and B) Expensive, C) not sure if you can only share tagged content from a library to an external plex pass user, or not.
2) Just create multiple plex accounts, not the pass ones, and share with each of them. I don’t know if this even works or is a possibility, and what the other members of the family would lose (streaming quality, home screen with fast user switching) if it even is…
3) Purchase 1 additional plex pass user, and have the first one be server only. Have it share the whole library that has any tags at all to the second plex pass user account. Create sub accounts from the second plex user account, and share those shared libraries to the sub accounts, with specific tags for specific people. So that user account I could just give them the login info, it wouldn’t matter because they would only ever see tagged content, as that is all that would be shared to the second plex account. But I don’t know if you can share content libraries that were shared to you with guest accounts on your plex account.
Sorry for the long post. But my questions are:
Am I missing an easy answer to this? Is there a way to set up a new plex device using some sort of log in for a guest account without needing the full plex pass holder’s PW / UN and that doesn’t make them log in under the main plex pass holder and so be able to view all media, tagged and untagged alike?
Can the main server, logged in with the plex pass holder, share only tagged content with non-plex pass holders? Is there any way to do fast user switching if the main account is a plex pass holder but the other accounts aren’t?
Can the main plex pass holder share only tagged content with another plex pass holder, and have that second plex pass holder only share specific tags to specific guest accounts? Can the second plex pass holder edit or change the tags that the main account puts on? Does the second plex pass holder see the specific tags put on the media that the main plex pass holder put on?
Can you do Fast User Switching between different plex pass holders, if they have all logged into the device before? Is there some discount you can get on like a 5 pack of plex passes?
There seems to be some misinformation going around about Plex Home that folks seem to think only managed users can be in them. Managed users can only exist in a Plex Home but you can add a regular free user account to your Plex Home as well.
All users, whether managed or a regular account, in a Plex Home will be in the fast user switcher. all of the users in the Plex Home can use the mobile apps at no cost.
Managed users do not have an email or a password so they cannot log in. this is most meant for children and you can in this fashion control which devices they can use. You sign into your kids phone for them (don’t give out your password) then you switch the account to the managed account and give them back their phone. Your kid does not sign out. (sign out is actually removed) They can’t for example give their password to their friends, they can’t use it on their computer meant for homework. Other users cannot share with managed accounts. So your kids can’t go online and get random people to share with them for example.
Grown ups like your spouse can make their own regular free Plex account. You can invite that Plex account into your Plex Home by hitting 'An existing Plex account" rather than creating a managed user. they accept that invite and they are in your Plex Home as well.
Whether an account you share with is in your Plex Home or not you can use the sharing labels and ratinga to restrict accounts to only items with those labels/ratings
If you do not want to have your spouse or whomever create their own Plex account you can do what I do with a gmail feature for a couple of my family members. Gmail has a thing where if your email is for example bigwheel@gmail.com you can sign up for things online with bigwheel+someotherword@gmail.com as the email. when folks send something to that email will actually go to bigwheel@gmail.com,
So for my mom for example I made Plex account with the email bigwheel+mom@gmail.com and i receive all the emails for that account to myself. I just made the username something simple. I then share with that account and since i get the invite emails and such i accept the invite for her. ( i accept in web app not the emails generally) then i tell her the username and password and she can use whatever Plex app she wants.
Thank you so much. That is very helpful, and the clarification about the plex home and free users is great.
I am going to try that out. But one additional question, and I think you pretty much answered it, but I wanted to make sure.
All the features of the Plex Pass will be available to the free users in the home of a Plex Pass member? They won’t have any limits different from managed users. I know that there were features like enhanced player that come with the Plex Pass.
Actually I tried it and that isn’t true.
I deleted the managed users and created free users. When logging into the Apple TV it won’t let me enable the enhanced viewer. It says it is only for Plex Pass users.
I’m trying to find similar functionality.
I have my Plex Pass account set up for admin duties only, not for playback. I have a bunch of managed Home users with restricted access.
The reason for this is to have one super user for library management etc. and other users that have bespoke library access without the need for a login PIN like the admin account requires.
With one of these managed accounts I would also like Tidal access (I understand only proper signed up accounts can have Tidal linked) along with all Plex Pass features like sync and enhanced player.
Can this be done?
