While our apps work to give you a great default Home screen, everyone’s needs can be different—and can even vary from device to device for the same person. For instance, maybe you really want to focus on your music and photos on your phone, but want movies and TV shows front and center on your tablet.
That’s where the ability to customize things comes in. Our mobile apps allow you to easily choose what appears on your Home screen, which types of media are available, and how to arrange the available sources.
Tip!: Customizations are associated with the particular app install. If you delete and reinstall Plex on your phone, the customizations would be lost. Similarly, if you customize the app on your iPhone, it does not get mirrored on your iPad.
Related Page: Navigating the Mobile Apps
Related Page: Redesigned Mobile Apps FAQ
Edit the Home Screen
Customizing what’s included on your Home screen and how it’s displayed is a great way to make Plex work just like you want. Our mobile apps allow you to choose what content appears on the Home screen as well as the content order.
Note: The ability to customize the Home screen is currently available for our Android and iOS mobile apps, as well as the Roku app. It is not available in other apps, though we’re working to expand the capability to other apps, too.
Reorder Home Screen Rows
Using the Reorder Home Screen button found at the bottom of the Home screen, you can reorder the rows displayed. Once you’ve opened the menu, simply drag the rows into your desired order, then hit Done at the top to save.
Remove a Row
Tapping the … button to the right side of the row name will bring up a menu, allowing you to take actions based on that row.
- Go to [Row Name]: (Such as “Go to On Deck”, “Go to Recently Added Photos”, etc.) This is a shortcut to allow you to browse the specified content directly.
- Remove from Home Screen: If you no longer want the selected row to appear on your Home screen, you can remove it from showing up here. (You can always go and add it back later; see below.)
- Reorder Home Screen: A shortcut to open the Reorder screen to allow you to reorder the Home screen rows. (See above.)
Add a New Row
Adding new rows to your Home screen allows for very powerful customization. For instance, you could have “Recently Added Music” from your music library right alongside the “On Deck” info from your television library.
To add a new row:
- Select the desired media type in the bottom bar (e.g. Music).
- If you aren’t already viewing the desired source for that media type, choose the correct source from the menu at the top.
- Find the desired row (e.g. “Recently Added Music”) and then tap the … menu for that row.
- Use the Add to Home Screen action, which then makes that row appear on your app’s Home screen.
New rows are added at the bottom of the Home screen. You can then reorder them however you want (see above).
Tip!: When adding a row such as “Recently Added Music” to the Home screen, the Home screen row will include items from all libraries of that type on the server, by default. (e.g. If you have two music libraries, the Home screen row will combine recent content from both.) You can control whether a library contributes via the Include in dashboard advanced library setting.
See how to add a new row to the Home screen in action:
Edit the Type Bar
Note: The ability to customize the type bar is currently available for our Android and iOS mobile apps, as well as the Plex Media Player and Xbox One “TV” apps. It is not available in other apps, though we’re working to expand the capability to other apps, too.
Mobile
You’ll use the bottom bar in the app to choose a particular media type to view and explore. You can change the order of those types (which will also determine which types are available for selection outside of the … More menu) as well as choose not to expose a particular type at all. For instance, maybe you really want to focus on your music and photos on your phone (and so order those first), but want movies and TV shows front and center on your tablet.
To edit the media types, first open the … More menu and then choose to Edit at the top.
Once you’ve opened the Edit menu, you can:
- Reorder the types, by dragging them to the desired order. The types at the top of the list will be always visible in the bottom type bar in the mobile apps (the number visible can vary depending on the particular device, but “three” is common). Other types will be accessible via the … More menu.
- Disable one or more types from appearing. If you never watch movies on your phone, for instance, you may not wish to even have that option available.
Once you’ve completed your changes, hit Done and you’ll see your changes reflected in the bottom type bar.
See how to reorder and disable items on the bottom type bar in action:
TV
You’ll use the top bar in the app to choose a particular media type to view and explore. You can change the order of those types, as well as choose not to expose a particular type at all. For instance, maybe you really want to focus on movies and TV shows in your TV app, but have music front and center on your tablet.
To edit the order of your media types, first open the app Settings menu, choose the Home Screen Media Types section, and then choose to Edit list order at the top.
Select a source and you can then move it up or down in the list, to order things as desired.
When you’re finished, Done will apply the changes. You can also select a particular type to choose whether to Show or Hide it in the top bar.
If you never want to view your photos on the big screen, perhaps you might hide the Photos type.
Edit the Source List for a Media Type
When viewing a particular type of media, you’ll be able to choose which source to view, if you have access to more than one. For instance, you might have your own library of photos as well one shared with you by a friend or family member or maybe you have multiple TV libraries of your own. To choose which source you wish to view/access, you simply open the menu at the top. By default, they’ll be arranged with your owned sources listed first followed by sources that have been shared to you.
Most people will only have one or two sources available for any particular media type, but some people might have several. In that case, you may wish to customize the order in which they’re displayed—so that your favorite or most commonly-used one is at the top, for instance.
Note: You can customize the order of your media sources in both our mobile apps as well as newer TV-oriented apps, such as Plex Media Player and Xbox One.
Mobile
When you open the source selector in the mobile apps, you’ll find an Edit button at the top. If you select that, you can then drag each media source to reorder it, then use Done when you’re finished.
TV
Note: In our “big screen” apps, customizing the source list for a media type is currently only available in Plex Media Player and Xbox One.
After you’ve selected a media type in the supported big screen app, you’ll see a list of available sources below the type bar. Scroll to the end and select the … entry. Here, you can choose the desired source or you can Edit list order at the top. Select that to start customizing.
Select a source and you can then move it up or down in the list, to order things as desired.
You can also choose the ... entry (at the end by default) and change the order. That will control where that corresponding entry is in the list and anything after it will be “hidden” and accessible when you open that entry. For instance, we may start with multiple sources for the Other Videos type:
We can go in to the sources to edit the order. We decide we’re only normally interested in the first two library sources, so we move the … entry into the third position:
Now, when we view that type, we only see the first two sources, while others are still accessible from the … menu.
