Settings for the Plex Media Player app can be accessed from the User Menu (accessed by selecting your avatar image) located at the top of the the Navigation Side Bar.
Main
Automatically Sign In
If you’re a member of a Plex Home, you can use this option to have the app automatically sign in to the last used user and bypass any PIN for that user.
Related Page: Plex Home
Preview the new Plex experience
Select to opt-in to preview the new Plex interface.
Remember Selected Tab
Default to the last selected tab when viewing a media source.
Language
Choose the language for the Plex Media Player interface.
Cinema Trailers
The cinema trailers setting controls how many cinema trailers will play before a movie. Source settings can be controlled through Plex Media Server.
Related Page: Cinema Trailers, Extras, & Related Albums
Screen Saver
The screen saver setting controls the timeout before the screen saver begins. Note that this is independent from the system.
Auto Play
When the Post Play screen is presented after playback, choose whether an “up next” video should be played automatically after a short countdown.
Clock
The clock setting can be used to select the clock format to be used, or if the clock should be disabled.
Background Style
The background style setting lets the user choose between Blur and Dim.
Play Theme Music
Choose if you would like the Theme Music played while browsing TV Shows.
Allow Fallback to Insecure Connections
When enabled, it means that this device is allowed to make insecure connections to a Plex Media Server if secure connections fail. Available choices:
- Never – (Default) Never fall back to insecure connections without specific action from the user
- On same network as server – Allow fallback, but only when Plex Media Player and the Plex Media Server are on the same network
- Always – Always allow fallback
Sound Feedback
Select to enable feedback sounds when navigating the app.
Layout
- Auto– Allows the app to switch between desktop and TV layout.
- TV – Locks the TV layout and does not automatically switch to desktop mode.
Full Screen
The Full Screen toggle controls whether the app is rendered in full screen or windowed. On OS X, this may result in better results than the full screen window control.
Always on Top
The Always on Top toggle allows the app to remain ontop of any other windows that may be open.
Automatic Updates
Select to allow Plex Media Player to automatically check for updates.
Check for updates
Select to trigger a manual check for available updates.
Update Channel
The Update Channel setting lets the user control which update channel the app is subscribed to. Most users will want to leave this set to Stable, but other channels can receive early preview releases depending on the user’s permission level.
Disable Mouse
Select to disable mouse input in the app.
Force Fullscreen Display
Select to specify a display to force the app to be displayed on in full screen mode.
Audio
Tip!: For more in-depth information and configuration help, Please check out our dedicated Plex Media Player Audio Configuration Guide - Plex Media Player.
Device Type
The Device Type settings allows users to select between Basic, Optical (S/PDIF), and HDMI depending on their configuration.
Channels
Channel settings allow the user to configure their audio setup based on the number of channels their home theater setup supports. Most users will want to select Stereo if they are using a built-in audio system on devices such as laptops.
Device
The Device setting allows users to change the output device when multiple are detected by the system. Most users will want to select Built-in Output when using standard configurations.
Normalize Downmixed Volume
When downmixing from surround (5.1) to stereo channels, Plex Media player will try to normalize the volume to make the quieter sounds more audible. If you hear distortion you can try disabling this.
Exclusive Mode
This sets an audio output mode which allows only Plex Media Player to output audio to the selected audio device.
Passthrough: Dolby Digital (AC3)
This enables passthrough audio for AC3 audio. By default this option is disabled, resulting in the audio data being decoded to PCM. (This is not inferior sound to passthrough.)
Passthrough: DTS (DCA)
This enables passthrough audio for DTS audio. By default this option is disabled, resulting in the audio data being decoded from the standard DTS core audio track to PCM. (This is not inferior sound to passthrough.)
Passthrough: Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3)
This enables passthrough audio for Dolby Digital Plus audio. By default this option is disabled, resulting in the audio data being decoded to PCM. (This is not inferior sound to passthrough.)
Passthrough: DTS-HD Master Audio
This enables passthrough audio for DTS-HD audio. By default this option is disabled, resulting in the audio data being decoded from the standard DTS core audio track to PCM. (This is not inferior sound to passthrough.)
Dolby TrueHD
This enables passthrough audio for Dolby TrueHD audio. By default this option is disabled, resulting in the audio data being decoded to PCM. (This is not inferior sound to passthrough.)
Note: Due to platform limitations, passthrough of DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby TrueHD, audio is limited to Windows and Linux only.
Video
Local Quality
This sets the quality to use when streaming content on your local network. In most cases, you can set this to a high value (such as “Original”). Higher settings produce better video quality but require more network bandwidth.
Remote Quality
You can set the quality to use when streaming content from a remote Plex Media Server. The quality you can reliably use is typically limited by either your download bandwidth or the upload bandwidth from the source Plex Media Server.
Related Page: Why is my video stream buffering?
Online Quality
You can set the quality to use when streaming content from online sources in Plex, such as News or Web Shows. The quality you can reliably use is typically limited by either your download bandwidth or the network speed of the source website for the content which you’re streaming.
Allow Display Mode Switching
This feature enables Plex Media Player to change the display refresh rate to the same value (or multiple of) as the fps the video was encoded in (or as close as possible) before starting playback. This allows Plex Media Player to minimize the amount of stutter/judder that you might otherwise see when playing back videos which do not match up well.
Hardware Decoding
The Hardware Decoding toggle enables or disables hardware decoding so long as the device supports it. This can be useful when playing high-definition media on devices which have a less powerful CPU.
Deinterlace
This allows Plex Media Player to attempt to deinterlace media that is interlaced.
Note: The Deinterlace setting does not apply in Mac OS X if the Hardware Decoding option is enabled.
Allow Direct Play
When playing media that is natively compatible, the Allow Direct Play toggle allows the app to directly play it without any conversion. You will almost always want this enabled.
Allow Direct Stream
When enabled, the Allow Direct Stream toggle allows the server to copy compatible audio and video streams without converting them and repackage the streams inside a natively supported container. You will almost always want this enabled.
Sync Mode
The Sync Mode setting controls which clock to be used during playback, and allows the user to choose between Audio and Display.
- Choosing
Audiowill make Plex Media Player skip or repeat video frames in regular intervals if the frame rates don’t match exactly (or exact multiples). - Choosing
Displaywill play the video according to the display refresh rate (so 23.976 is sped up to 24 fps if necessary, for instance) and resample the audio to keep it in sync with the video.
If it is more important to you that there is no video stuttering/frame duplication when you have a setup which is not capable of switching the computer output to the exact same (or multiple) Hz as the video has fps, then Display is your choice. If it is more important to you that Plex Media Player does not resample the audio when the Hz does not align with the fps, then Audio should be your choice.
Network Cache
The Network Cache setting allows the user to specify the maximum size of the network cache used by Plex Media Player. Most users will want to leave this set to Default (75MB).
Video Aspect
Choose whether (and how) the aspect ratio of video might get changed for display. Most users will want to stick to the default Display normally value.
- Display normally
- Zoom (can cut off video)
- Force video to 4:3
- Force video to 16:9
- Force 4:3 video to 16:9
- Stretch video to screen
- Disable all scaling
- Custom
Note: The Custom entry means that it uses whatever custom values you may have specified in your mpv.conf file. See: Advanced Configuration
Subtitles
Placement
The Subtitle Placement setting controls the location where subtitles are displayed on the screen when supported and enabled. The user can choose between Lower left, Lower right, Lower middle (the default), Upper left, Upper right, and Upper middle.
Color
The Subtitle Color setting allows the user to specify the color that subtitles are displayed in. They can choose between Light grey, Blended light grey, Yellow, Light yellow, and Blended light yellow.
Size
The Subtitle Size setting controls which preset size subtitles are rendered at: Tiny, Small, Normal, Large, and Huge.
Related Page: Using Subtitles
Manual Servers
You can manually specify the IP address (IPv4) and port for a Plex Media Server to which you want to connect.
Tip!: So long as you sign in to your Plex account in both the Plex Media Player app and your Plex Media Server, the app will automatically have connection information for the server and you won’t need to use this.
Privacy
View Privacy Policy
View Plex’s privacy policy.
View Terms of Service
View Plex’s Terms of Service.
View AdChoices
View information about your “AdChoices”.
About
The About menu contains the version of Plex (the integrated UI), Plex Media Player, and the underlying Operation System are running.