FAQ – Plex Cloud

Notice: Plex Cloud will no longer be available after November 30th, 2018.

Update – September 2018: We’ve made the difficult decision to shut down the Plex Cloud service on November 30th, 2018. As you may know, we haven’t allowed any new Plex Cloud servers since February of this year, and since then we’ve been actively working on ways to address various issues while keeping costs under control. We hold ourselves to a high standard, and unfortunately, after a lot of investigation and thought, we haven’t found a solution capable of delivering a truly first class Plex experience to Plex Cloud users at a reasonable cost. While we are super bummed about the impact this will have on our happy Cloud users, ending support for it will allow us to focus on improving core functionality, adding new features and content, and delivering on our mission to provide a world-class product that we can all rely on and enjoy.

Update – February 2018: We have disabled server creation for new Plex Cloud users. We’ve been working to address challenges with performance, quality, and overall user experience inherent with cloud provider integrations and are pausing new server creation to evaluate the long term plan for the service. While we evaluate our options, we will continue to support existing Plex Cloud users and will communicate any service changes before they take effect.

Sunsetting Plex Cloud Questions

What does this mean for Plex Cloud Users?

On November 30th, 2018, you will no longer be able to access your Plex Cloud server. As with any Plex Media Server, your media files themselves will not be affected. We encourage you to set up a Plex Media Server on a computer or NAS device on your local network and Plex On! Our friends at WD have lots of storage options from hard drives to NAS devices, and they’re currently offering a discount through Plex Pass Perks to help you out.

What happens to my cloud content?

Your content is yours and will remain in your cloud storage, untouched by Plex. Whether you use Dropbox or Google Drive, your cloud storage accounts are separate from Plex Cloud and will continue to work as long as you maintain your subscriptions with those respective 3rd-party services. On November 30th, 2018, all 3rd-party cloud storage services will be unlinked from Plex Cloud.

What can I do with my content in cloud storage if I only use it for Plex Cloud?

You can download your content from your cloud storage and store it locally on a NAS, run a data center hosted VPS server and point to your cloud storage to it, or something more adventurous. Feel free to use our community forums to get ideas and know-how on more specialized setups.

Can I migrate my Plex Cloud database to my local Plex Media Server?

No. While you can download your Plex Cloud database, that capability has only been intended for issue investigation. We do not offer a means to migrate or replace a Plex Media Server database with a Plex Cloud database.

General Questions

How is Plex Cloud different than Cloud Sync?

Cloud Sync was designed to have selected media from your local Plex Media Server synced to the Cloud so that you could access the content even when your local server was offline or otherwise unavailable. As a sync service, this required original files to remain on your local storage. Plex Cloud is a full-fledged Plex Media Server located in the Cloud. Your media is hosted independently of your local storage. Plex Cloud also includes the ability to transcode content for compatibility with your Plex player apps when needed.

Which cloud storage providers are supported?

The following cloud storage providers are currently supported for Plex Cloud:

Dropbox
Google Drive
OneDrive (“personal” accounts, not OneDrive for Business)

What players/apps support connecting to Plex Cloud?

Plex player apps must support “secure connections”. The list of those players can be found in our How to Use Secure Server Connections article.

Related Page: How to Use Secure Server Connections

Plex Cloud Service Questions

Can I have multiple Plex Cloud servers?

Each Plex account can have a single Plex Cloud server. You cannot create more than one Plex Cloud for the same account.

Where do I see the status of my existing Plex Cloud server and restart it?

You can see if your Plex Cloud server is “Sleeping” or “Active” and manually wake it in the Plex Cloud account settings page. That can be accessed under Account > Plex Cloud in the web app for existing Plex Cloud users.

How do I scan libraries with Plex Cloud?

After you add new media to the content location for one of your libraries, simply go to Plex Web App and Scan Library Files for that library. The server will then look for new content to pull in to your library.

Related Page: Scanning vs Refreshing a Library

Can I backup and restore my database and watch status?

No. You can download the database and logs, but they are only for issue investigation.

Related Page: Plex Media Server Log Files

Are there any feature limitations with Plex Cloud?

Generally speaking, using Plex Cloud will be very similar to using a regular, local Plex Media Server. There are, however, a few feature limitations when it comes to Plex Cloud.

How many simultaneous streams can I have?

Each Plex Cloud server is limited to 3 concurrent transcode streams. If a stream is fully “Direct Play” it will not count against that limit, however “Direct Stream” will.

Are Local Media Assets supported?

Some, but not all local media assets are supported.

Supported

External (sidecar) subtitle files
ID3 or similar supported embedded metadata in music files

Unsupported

Local artwork files (posters, backgrounds, episode images, etc.)
Local lyrics
Local music videos
Local trailers and extras
Local TV theme music

Custom artwork can be added when editing library items, if desired.

Related Page: Local Media Assets - Movies
Related Page: Local Media Assets - TV Shows
Related Page: Identifying Music Media Using Embedded Metadata
Related Page: Adding Local Subtitles to Your Media

What other features are not supported?

The following Plex features are not currently available with (or simply do not apply to) Plex Cloud:

Alexa Voice Control
Camera Upload
Channels (and other plugins)
Cloud Sync
DLNA
DVR & Live TV
Media Optimizer
Mobile Sync
Scheduled Tasks
Server-side settings for Streaming Brain
Transcoder server settings
Video Preview Thumbnail generation
WebHooks

Some of these features may be brought to Plex Cloud in the future, but we don’t have any details to share on that.

Why are music scans so slow?

Music scans are significantly slower than those from local installs of PMS. This is for a number of reasons:

Music scans need to read the file many times (in different places). It collects local tags, file metadata & we do some fingerprinting to better identify tracks (the grace note stuff)
Cloud providers add significant overhead. Each time we need to request things we have to make a few network requests (which all have latency) and then get the data back
Cloud providers do rate limit us a little (like they do for every app – even with our high quotas), but we see bursts get smoothed by exponential backoff
497 albums can mean more than 10000 items, and thus > 30000 reads. It takes time

A few things:

We wait until the first full scan has succeeded before marking the folders as complete
On subsequent scans we skip over the complete folders (that’s why some library scans can be near instant)

Cloud Storage Provider Questions

Where will my media be stored?

Plex Cloud links with your existing Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive Cloud storage accounts. That’s where you’ll upload/store your media.

Can I add more than one Cloud storage provider?

Yes, absolutely! You can link multiple Cloud storage providers (only one of each) and you can point libraries to content on any of them.

Can I have a different Cloud storage provider for Plex Cloud and Cloud Sync?

Yes. Plex Cloud and Cloud Sync treat links to any of our supported cloud storage providers separately.

How do I upload my files to a cloud storage provider?

Desktop and mobile apps are available directly from each supported cloud storage provider.

Dropbox: The desktop app supports mounting Dropbox as a drive and you can also upload via the web browser to Dropbox’s website.
Google Drive: The desktop app supports mounting Google as a drive and you can also upload via the web browser to Google Drive’s website.
OneDrive: Microsoft provides OneDrive integration for Windows. For Mac, the desktop app supports mounting OneDrive as a drive. You can also upload via the web browser to OneDrive’s website.

Are there file size limitations?

Each supported cloud storage provider has their own file size limitations, which can vary depending on the method used for uploading. Use this as a guide and resort to each provider’s own information (links providers) for the most current specifications.

Dropbox: Files uploaded via Dropbox’s desktop or mobile apps have no file size limit, beyond your storage quota. Files uploaded through the web browser to Dropbox’s site must be 20GB or smaller. (source)
Google Drive: Files can be up to 5TB in size. (source)
OneDrive: Files can be up to 10GB in size. (source)

How do I get Plex Cloud to see my Google Photos content?

Enable Automatically put your Google Photos into a folder in My Drive in your Google Drive settings. (To be clear, this is not a Plex setting. It is a setting in your regular Google Drive management area.)

Related Page: Google Drive settings

Last modified on: September 11, 2018

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FAQ – Plex Cloud

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