Actually, Plex does remember. You have to change the settings in the media folder and check “Store Track Progress”. Really, you only need to change a few settings for it to work. Now, does it work well when playing back through the Plex app or the Plexamp app? Eh…it is ok, but not great. This is where using a third-party app that’s specifically for audiobooks makes it great.
I don’t think Plex will ever get to a point of more readily supporting audiobook management. It is a small subset of the users and Plex really isn’t geared that way.
For me…Plex managing the media library and playing audiobooks through Prologue app on iPhone works better than Audible. But that’s me…to each their own.
Plex will remember what track you are on but not WHERE in that track you are. If you have a book with 20 files and each file is two hours long, it will remember you were on track 4 but now where in that 2 hours. Without that, it sucks. That’s why I use Prologue on my iphone. It builds a database to keep track of where you are in the book regardless of the number or length of the audio files.
Plex will remember where in a track you are, but not which track you last listened to. If you know what track you were last on, it will resume at the place in that file where you last left off.
My solution for a long time (before Prologue and Chronicle existed) was to screenshot my place on occasion, especially right after I paused.
However, if you reach somewhere around 90% or more in the track, it won’t resume anymore because it thinks you’re finished with that track. This is why having a single hours-long file is especially annoying if you need to stop listening near the end of the book.
…Now, I use Bookcamp, so it’s not really an issue.
It seems to be dependent on the app being used to play the audiobook. The Plex app doesn’t seem to remember which track or where in the track. I just tested my audiobook library with it. I swore though it used to remember the progress of the track, but not the specific track you were on.
The Plexamp app does remember where in the track you are, but not which track you are on.
Hmm…I wonder if there is something larger going on in Plex with the track memory and the specific progress in the track.
@elan I noticed you’ve chimed in recently on the Comic/ePub/PDF library request with some insight into the it ever being done in the near future. Unfortuntaly, not a possitive outlook.
Since audiobook support is a bit closer to the core of the Plex experience, maybe you could also share the same regarding this feature?
It’s been a long time since I tried to play a book in PLEX. I use Prologue. but you are right. It isn’t suited and the remember track location does you no good.
Plex will remember where you are in a track, however you can not click the play button on the album and have it play the last track you played in the book. This is fine if you have everything merged to a single track, but if you break things out by chapter then you have to remember the last track you played and play that.
Btw: @chyron8472 I’m pretty sure that if you have store track progress enabled, it doesn’t use the 90% completion anymore. I recall that being an update some time ago (early this year).
IIRC - I know the chronicle dev has them utilized in his application, but I think that is just due to direct play and handling them client side. Not sure what would happen if there is transcoding involved (assume it would convert to mp3 and they would be lost in that case).
I find in plexamp the track location feature is annoying, I end up playing the track near the end (where it’s still quiet) over and over for some reason. It’d be great to be able to add that at the library level, just for audiobooks.
Yes please! Right now I use booksonic for audiobooks as it’s one of the only self hosted audio book players. The software looks 10 years old and it’s clunky. Plex having audiobook support would immediately make it the best way for anyone to stream their audiobooks.
With Android i listen audiobook on Chronicle Audiobook Player. It’s not perfect but the job is done. Resume works well. If you use the audible agent for book description, and with manual modification for the author. It’s a good compromise.
Resume works well. If you use the audible agent for book description, and with manual modification for the author. It’s a good compromise.