Creating and Managing Server Shares

You can easily share one or more of your libraries with family or friends. The ability to share is intended for use with family and close, personal friends.

Getting Started

Plex Media Server

Your Plex Media Server needs to be signed in to your account. Make sure you’ve done so under Settings > Server > General.

If you’ll be sharing with someone away from where you live (i.e. outside your local network), then you will also need to enable the “Remote Access” feature, so that your server will be accessible to them.

Related Page: Sign in to Your Plex Account
Related Page:

Accessing the Users Area

Managing your server sharing is done under the Users area in Plex Web App. You can access this under Settings > Users in Plex Web App.

Alternatively, you can also access the Users item under the dropdown at the top right.

Click the Friends menu option on the left to access your Friends, which is where you’ll manage your shares.

Related Page: Using Plex Web App

Sharing

Create a New Share

From inside the Users > Friends area, use the Invite Friend button to open the invite wizard.

Username or Email

Enter the username or email address for the Plex account you wish to invite. If you invite someone who doesn’t yet have a Plex account, they’ll be able to create their own Plex account when accepting your invitation.

Select the Server

Plex Media Servers associated with your Plex account will be available on the left side. For each server, you can choose whether or not to share content with the friend.

You can leave All Libraries selected or you can unselect it to choose only individual libraries to share.

Set Restrictions

Restrictions allow you to more finely control access to content you share. You can choose whether or not the friend is able to sync shared content, use Camera Upload, or access channels. Plex Pass subscribers can also select specific content ratings from your library to share as well as content that you’ve set with a specific “label”.

Tip!: Restrictions besides Allow Channels require an active Plex Pass subscription for the main Plex Media Server account.

Related Page: Restricting the Shares

Edit an Existing Share

If you’re already sharing content with a friend, you can edit the sharing information from the Users page whenever you like.

Select a Friend to Edit

Click the edit (pencil) icon for a friend to edit that entry.

A window will appear, allowing you to edit that friend. The sharing options available are the same as those covered earlier for new shares.

Related Page: Restricting the Shares

Remove a Friend

If you wish to remove the friend altogether, you can do that, too. Simply use the button on the friend’s entry.

Related Page: Friends

Accept an Invitation

If someone shares a server with you, there are two ways in which you can accept the invitation: via the email you receive or directly in your Plex Web App.

Accept Via Email

When someone shares a server with you, an email invitation is automatically sent. When you open the email, it will contain a link that you can click to accept the sharing invitation: