There should be an option to choose the quality of a show/movie download. For example, say a friend is overseas and has hotel Wi-Fi (which in this case we’re assuming is slow), they should be able to download in a lower quality else it’ll take too long.
Isn’t the idea to download before moving to a weak / no network situation?
(not saying things cannot/shouldn’t change if there’s a use case for them 
)
Just for clarification… which client are you talking about – the new Plex for Windows/Mac client?
Web client.
I don’t think there’s actually an option to download… as you said… it’s the web client.
Just checked it… from the web client you should only be able to trigger a Sync to a mobile device (e.g. iPad/iPhone). When clicking “download/sync” on the web app, Plex asks me to pick the target device and then asks for the target quality.
This is to accommodate client restrictions (e.g. to ensure the synced version is within the constraints the client is capable to play).
When downloading to the desktop client there’s no such consideration as those clients have significantly less playback restrictions.
The underlying core premise for both is however that you download (or sync) a file while being in a non-metered network (e.g. your home network).
Early 2021 clean-up: implemented (Plex for Mac/Windows: Settings > Plex for Mac/Windows > Downloads)
