I think that the introduction of user-specific libraries would be enormously helpful, as each user currently has to scroll through media for everyone, whereas user-specific libraries would allow media to be stored for individuals as well as for all users in separate places and amalgamated at the experience level. For example, I have a NAS with “Movies”, “TV Shows”, etc. for all Plex users, along with subfolders for each user with the same structure (i.e. “Movies”, “TV Shows”, etc.) that are then added to relevant libraries. This allows individuals to manage their own media but doesn’t allow them to exclude media from other users.
You could setup each user’s TV\Movie folder on the NAS individually for their access in Plex and name it as such when added to Plex as a Library and just make sure all user specific Plex libraries are shared to all users.
So Jim TV Library folder setup for Jim’s access on the NAS and Paul TV Library folder setup for Paul’s access on the NAS then each folder gets added to Plex by you as the Admin as individual TV Libraries (and probably named as such) with access to the Plex Library given to any Plex users. Now Jim can add shows to his folder on the NAS and they’ll show up in Jim’s library and Paul can add shows to his folder on the NAS and they’ll show up in Paul’s library and both libraries will display in Plex for all users to browse.
Edit: To clarify a bit. You have a NAS and Jim and Paul have access to it. You setup for each user a “TV Shows” and “Movies” directory. Users can add TV Shows or Movies to their own folders but can’t access other user folders (be sure they are following the naming conventions).
In Plex, you add Jim’s TV Shows folder and Pauls TV Shows folder as separate TV Show Libraries. You add Jim’s Movies folder and Paul’s Movies folder as separate Movie Libraries. I’d name them in Plex something like “Jim’s TV Shows” and “Paul’s Movies” or something similar.
Now when either accesses Plex, they’ll see their own libraries as well as other user libraries. You can use some of Plex’s sharing functions to have additional granularity.
The users can only add files to the NAS while you, as the admin, will manage the Plex side of things but auto-scanning and matching will take care of most of the new content functions.
This should keep it segregated but accessible.
There’s also a setting for merging recently added items if you want everyone’s recently added TV or Movie titles to be combined into universal “recently added” rows:
I think that’d work for what you’re trying to do? Depending on how many users you’ll have this could be a lot of libraries to navigate and be a bit cumbersome, particularly in Plex New Experience UI, but some Home Screen customizations as Admin might help reduce that a bit and users and personalize it a bit as well.
If you’re trying to host media while letting users curate their own selections\view of that media that’s a bit more of a service provider level thing and not really within scope of most media centers. The closest for that is probably the Watchlist feature (https://support.plex.tv/articles/universal-watchlist/)
Users cannot manage anything, because there is only one user account with adminstrative permissions per server. And that is the server owner.
If we are talking about minors, use the restriction profiles on their sharing restrictions to hide unsuitable items from your regular libraries. https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/plex-home
If these are adult users, who just happen to hate or like certain content, you can use the sharing flags to hide or add certain items from view.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/204232573-restricting-the-shares/
