You can give access to individual media items from your Plex Media Server instead of the entire library with another Plex account. This can be useful if you only want to give access to things “a la carte”.
Requirements
This feature requires Plex Media Server 1.19.3.2793 or higher
Player apps currently supported that can view the “Shared” source are
- Amazon Fire TV (v8.1.0 or newer)
- Android mobile (v8.1.0 or newer)
- Android TV (v8.1.0 or newer)
- Apple TV (v7.0 or newer)
- iOS (v7.0 or newer)
- Plex for LG
- macOS (desktop) (v1.11 or newer)
- PlayStation 4
- Roku (v6.6.0 or newer)
- Samsung (v4.25.2 and newer)
- Plex for Smart TVs
- Web (v4.34 or newer)
- Windows (desktop) (v1.11 or newer)
- Xbox One (v2.55.0 and newer)
Grant Access to a Media Item
1. From the overflow menu on media items poster or its pre-play screen choose Grant Access…
2. Select from your existing friends in the list or enter the email or username of the Plex account you would like to share with and hit Send. If you are already friends with the user the share access will be automatically accepted. If the user does not have a Plex account they will be sent an invitation to create one, then they will be able to accept the share.
Grant Access to single items from Mobile
Granting Access can also be performed and managed from the Android and iOS mobile apps by long pressing on the item to get option.
The types of single media items you can share are
- a movie
- a TV show
- a season
- an episode
- an album
- a song/track
- an artist
- a playlist
- a photo
- a photo album
Note: that if you are restricting a user via preset Restriction Profile or custom share restrictions, items meeting the restriction will not be able to be seen by the shared account. For example if a server admin tries to share a playlist that contains an R rated movie to user that can only view G and PG rated content, the R movie will not be seen in the playlist by that shared user.
Related Page: Restrictions on Library Access
Viewing Shared Media
Shared media items will be shown under a source called “Shared” in the library list of the server. This “Shared” source can be pinned to the home screen navigation sidebar in apps where it will also show the user and/or server is it being shared from.
Note that even in the “Shared” source is pinned content from it will not show up in the home screen “Continue Watching” row
Removing Shared Media
If you no longer wish to share a piece of Media or do not want something shared with you. You can remove the shared media in your Home & Library settings.
- Go to your accounts Home & Library Access settings.
- Find the user you are sharing the item with in the list of Home users or Friends and select them
- Click Shared Media tab at the top of the page.
- You will see the media you share with the user and the media they shared with you
- Hover over any row and click the X on the far right to remove
Related Page: Managing Library Access