Let’s see if we can keep this thread going another 10 years.
I would love to be able to send a message to all my remote users. Or even have some kind of announcement feature when they open the plex app.
I was thinking about just setting up a Discord server for all my Plex users. They could post requests for new or missing shows, let me know of any issues, or I could post maintenance notices. The problem is that after the initial Plex invite sent, I can not longer see their email addresses to send the link to.
Was just thinking about requesting this exact thing. Funny how long its been
It’s not been a big issue for me but I did think of going a similar route. Only most people on my server aren’t too technical, and asking them to sign up for discord just so we could communicate isn’t worthwhile. They don’t hesitate to call or text though. So for now when I need to take my server offline I text them all (there’s only one who’s number I don’t have for some reason)
But this would be cool. The only way I can message people in the app is if I stop playback. “I’mma not let you finish”
This request has now been in for over 10 years. It’s obviously a popular request, and you have to admit that it would be pretty handy for server admins. The feature seems like it would be relatively benign and simple to implement. Is there some technical hurdle that just makes it not worth the time?
Could this be a potential solution?
It gives the ability to send each other messages if you opt in. Granted these are messages around a given show but while someone is watching a movie or TV show the admin could send a message to say that there’s planned maintenance in a few hours and the server will be offline for about 30 minutes.
Current implementation of messaging in Plex
If it’s not exactly that, I don’t imagine it would take a major effort to create something that isn’t based on a particular movie or show allowing admins to just broadcast a message to all connected users.
It’s not much we’re asking for. A simple Text box on the general tab labeled, “MOTD” and give us a small number of characters and an element next to the search limit that shows up on the plex page.
for example: “MOTD: Server maintenance on Saturday morning between 6-9am.” or “MOTD: Server being taken down for 2 weeks to migrate to new hardware.”
That will go a long way in helping to let my guild members know that I didn’t block them, from uploading their streaming content to my server. Just that it’s down for repairs. Some of them are touchy like that and will remove my access from uploading to their servers. We have 3 servers in our guild. One for streams of each of the games we stream. That way we can preserve our content that isn’t YouTube.
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How is this still unsolved? It would be super helpful have a message to let people know you’re working on Plex. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been updating or working on the machine and I get several texts, “Is Plex down??”.
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Replying to myself. Yeah it’s been five years and one of the most popular features still isn’t enacted. It’s sort of a basic feature of system administration.
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i was doing mantienance to my NAS and i would like to place a message on top of plex homepage to let them know what is happening. i dont want to send notifications maybe just a message that will auto expire after a while if I want to.
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Another post, to roast, as the most voted for option for 10 years running continues to be ignored by Plex devs; who choose to tear down privacy and more in their latest updates.
I hope this is the next feature. Would be great to give notice before server changes,uprades, etc.
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adding another vote to disable new streams while letting current streams finish out. hope this comes to fruition at some point.
adding another vote for this feature.
This feature is long overdue, like defaulting to max quality (which we finally got). Fingers crossed!
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While I am here adding my post just to keep this request visible… I get that this is a bit of a double edged sword…
If Plex is just for sharing content with friends & family… Why can’t you just simply… Hit them a message? Hell train a pigeon to send out plex announcements. I can see why this feature would serve more to the wrong side of plex users than anything… But it would be nice if I could add a simple message/notification somewhere on top of my home screen (right above continue watching) when my server is on or offline… Simple enough.
Hi all! Threads like these are great and it is fun to see the positive support that comes out when lots of people support a feature. One of the challenges that has always existed is in having the requisite infrastructure to properly handle messaging like this. There are always myriad ways to implement something like this as we have declined to follow any of these paths up to now (I am also deliberately ignoring and not going to comment on the definition of what we consider “proper” here). However, I am excited to call out that some of that infrastructure is definitely in the works and can confirm this feature has a place on our roadmap.
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Thank you for the update! I really hope this feature is coming. Been 2 years since I last posted here, but I haven’t given up 
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@McWanke - Thank you for letting us know!
One of the best support things you guys can do is simply acknowledge when something is being worked on…even if it won’t become reality for years. I wish this could be highlighted in some way at the top of the forum thread.
I created a feature suggestion to implement a new forum tag for this…not sure if it is the best/easiest approach but that is why we have forums, to discuss ideas. No? 
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My $0.02 on implementation:
- Ability to send message to all clients as part of PMS shutdown process
2a. Server admin should be able to set a short status message that will be sent to authorized clients for the duration the server is offline
2b. The message should be temporary, re-set to default on every restart of PMS. This way nobody receives “Will be back in 5mins” when the server actually crashed and the admin is AFK…leaving frustrated users 5 hours later
This would go a long way to family harmony when I have to reboot the server and <family member> was just sitting down with bowl of popcorn on the other side of the country…
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