Ditto! The account plex runs as should not need to be a machine administrator (running a service with admin rights kind of violates everything that is holy in my mind).
There’s a workaround, however, that applies to both servers and your mac: If you have a non-admin account that you’re running Plex as, you can let that account own the binaries – just keep plex media server.app on that account’s desktop, or create your own “Applications” folder for that user, rather than installing plex as admin.
Here’s how:
Remote desktop or log into your machine as the “unprivileged” user (the non-admin account you run plex as).
Open your system applications folder. Delete the “Plex Media Server.app” icon by clicking command-delete, or dragging it to the trash. You should be asked for the admin password (because it’s owned by an admin account, and is in the main applications folder, which only an admin can modify).
Then, go download a clean copy of Plex Media Server. Move it from your downloads folder to the Desktop. Open it, and when it asks you to confirm “hey, you downloaded this from the internet” say yes.
When it asks if you want to move it to the applications folder, say no (it will attempt to move it to the system applications folder, and that’s not what you want.) Click the little box that says “don’t ask again”.
Open a new finder window, and hold down option, and from the “go” menu, click “Home”. You should see things like Desktop, Documents, Downloads. Create a new folder there, and call it “Applications”. You will not be asked for your admin password. You’ll notice that MacOS recognizes it as an application folder because it “brands” it correctly.
Quit the plex media server, and then drag it to that folder.
You’ll notice that it once again shows up in your Launchpad, and you can restart it from its new home, and you can totally enable it to start at login. Updating will work without a password now, both from the web UI, as well as from an Apple TV.
