My brother has a PlexApp on this TV for watching content stored on my server.
So he is watching remotely. I have a PlexPass and he has a free account.
So far so good. Now his wife started to watch some content also and that they have an overview of what they are watching I suggested to make her an free account also and add her to PlexHome so they can switch account to the one who is using it.
But it seems not possible to add a user to PlexHome on a free account.
Is that correct?
Plex Documentation â Plex Home
Add both their accounts to your Plex Home. You will need to invite the wife and share libraries with her if youâve not already done so.
They can then use Fast User Switching to change accounts.
PIN protect your account, to keep them (or others with whom you share libraries) from switching to your account, since it is the server owner.
Plex does not support re-sharing of libraries. You share libraries with your brother. Plex does not allow him to re-share those libraries with others. That is why adding the wifeâs account to his Plex Home does not let her access your server.
A free account can add Managed Users to their Plex Home (the re-sharing restriction mentioned above also applies to Managed Accounts).
A Plex Pass is required to add regular Plex accounts to a Plex Home (regular = account created at plex.tv with an e-mail address).
See Example Plex Home Setup for additional details.
This is just so wrong.
Managed aaccounts shouldnât be treated as seperate accounts, they are just profiles and should inherit from the main account. It should therefore not be considered âre-sharingâ.
Similarly, adding an account to your plex home shouldnât be a plex pass requirement since it doesnât inherit anything from the home, the only benefit you get is fast user switching.
If EITHER of these options was fixed people would be able to share with their family members and allow fast user switching without having access to the main account.
Is your suggestion that there should be, essentially, unlimited Managed User accounts tied back to a single server?
For example, I share with you and nine other users. Each of you creates 5 Managed Users under your own accounts and suddenly Iâm sharing with 50 users? That canât be what you mean, surely.
I ask because Plex allows for up to 100 users on a single account (including your own). If each of those account were allowed to create an unlimited amount of Managed Accounts, that could get out of hand rather quickly.
On the server account, a managed user account is really no different to a main account, it only allows for content filtering and seperate watch states. So why are they treated differently when part of a seperate plex home?
Yes I think there should be unrestricted number of managed accounts (to whatever restriction plex homes have) with access to the media shared with the admin account. I donât think this should violate the 100 share limit, because you arent having more than 100 people actually login.
Its a money thing for plex, but, I am a paid plex pass server holder. Why canât I share with a family member and have them be able to have additional content filtering on top of my share? Its not violating their current money approach, thereâs just no way to do it. Thats just sloppy development.
Technically they arenât 100 unique logins, no, but they are 100 unique users, meaning 100+ profiles could be streaming simultaneously. As @pshanew suggested, I would be VERY unhappy if I shared with John Doe, and suddenly two days later ten strangers were taking up my server resources.
Maybe if the profiles had to be approved by the Admin (and could also be revoked) it would be workable. A notification to the Admind: âJohn Doe has requested to create a sub-account for Suzy Doe. Reason: Household Family Member.â Then John Doe could create a profile for Suzy, his daughter, and further restrict access.
Something like that could be an interesting conversation.
This feels like a strange argument. You can already have multiple streams under 1 account, so, why does allowing managed accounts make any difference? They can (and do) all just use the main account at the moment. My sister just wants to be able to filter out all the non kid friendly shows.
This would be an existing, unrelated issue and could be solved by including active stream settings on a per share basis.
Thatâs not true. A lot of the Plex pass benefits are inherited by the managed users, for which a regular user would need their own Plex pass.
ok if I understood this right.
You can create a free user account and stream from my server (lifetime plex pass).
And there can be alot of single accounts from different devices with no problem,
But if two people share the same Smart-TV and both have a free account then one of them needs a paid plex pass or they have to switch accounts every time over plex.tv/activate?
Correct. Your Plex Pass does unlock the ability for all users to use remote streaming from your server.
As long as they share the same physical device, they can use Fast User Switching if one of them is a managed user. Even if the server owner doesnât have a full Plex Pass. (But in the latter case, the TV and the server need to be in the same local network to avoid remote access.)
What is also not possible without a full Plex Pass is to invite a regular plex.tv user account into your Plex Home.
Correct. But you better not accept any compensation (monetary or otherwise) for this sharing. Because that would constitute commercial use, which is explicitly forbidden by the Plex terms of usage.
And there are technical and account-related restrictions to the absolute number of sharees.
I think you argued my point, its inherited from the home admin,
Yep correct. Seems daft right?
As long as they share the same physical device, they can use Fast User Switching if one of them is a managed user. Even if the server owner doesnât have a full Plex Pass. (But in the latter case, the TV and the server need to be in the same local network to avoid remote access.)
What is also not possible without a full Plex Pass is to invite a regular plex.tv user account into your Plex Home.
But that is kind of stupid or very very greedy.
No my brother and his wife are not in the same network. (could be solved with a site-site vpn network)
For me that could be the point where I go test Jelly.
I mean I brought a lot of people to buy Plex and I had good arguments for it (offline watching, etc) but if you have to pay that 2 users can use the app on the same TV is a âno-goâ and is pure greed in my opinion. 
Yeah, but if the server owner has a Plex pass themsevles, then the users donâ t need to pay at all. And if the server owner does not, why shouldnât the users have to pay?
