Hopefully this is the right place to ask…
I would like to do the opposite of having Plex download from my server to play stuff. I would like to stream to my phone, just like Plex itself does with movies/TV shows. I have unlimited data with my phone, and I don’t have a lot of on-board storage space, even with Plexamp’s re-encoding from FLAC down to .ogg or Opus (is that right?).
I can’t find the setting anywhere in Plexamp to choose to stream the music. Or am I missing something?
Moving thinning its own thread as it’s not primarily related to the feature suggestion where you originally posted.
If you have remote access setup on your server, Plexamp will connect while you’re away and stream media (no need for any downloads).
Thanks, @tom80H
I do have remote access for the server, but it’s still downloading when I start playing an album. Is the setting in Plex, or Plexamp? Maybe I can’t find it because I’m only looking Plexamp
There’s no separate setting.
If I understand you correctly, what you see is Plex caching/buffering media – this will be listed in the server dashboard / activities as “downloading” (which is technically more or less the same).
You can control that to some degree in the Plexamp settings:
Settings >Player > Caching
That being said… there’s no “upside” of stripping this away
Plexamp will always download the current and the next tracks in the play queue. How many, and how fast is configurable
Then what is the downside to downloading the tracks?
This method was chosen for a reason, as opposed to streaming. Mobile devices often don’t have completely uninterrupted data connections. And nothing is more unnerving than music suddenly cutting out while on the move…
Like I said originally, storage size on the device. My phone has 128GB and it fills up quickly.
I hear your point re: spotty connections, but 99% of my streaming is on interstate freeways with plenty of coverage, so not really an issue. I also stream from Spotify the same way, again, no downloads.
Tom, I am in no way suggesting “stripping it away.” I’m just wondering how to turn downloads off in lieu of 100% streaming, just like Plex Movies/Shows, full stop.
The tracks are only downloaded temporarily. Once they are played, they will be removed eventually.
I’ve never noticed that; I’ll inspect closer. Thanks.
In addition to limiting the number of songs cached, you can also limit the size of the cache. The smallest cache size (at least on desktop Plexamp) is 512 MB). So you can hard-limit Plexamp caching to only use about 1/256th of you phone’s storage.
If you set Plexamp to only cache the next song, it is downloaded on the initiation of playback of the current song.
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