I can't hate a company for trying to grow, but potentially embarrassing your existing customers is a counterproductive way to do it. Someone at Plex clearly didn't think this out all the way, and I'd call it a serious fail on the part of Plex's decision makers (I assume they have some sort of a team) for not catching it. Thank you for publishing this issue, and, more importantly, the fix.

I continue to be mystified why different companies insist on adding "social" aspects to their offerings. I understand usage statistics as that help make better products. Thanks so much for pointing out these privacy settings. Just another thing I need to keep an eye on going forward.

Thanks Will! As always, you are my go-to source for all things Synology. Really appreciate this video in particular and I'm also not thrilled with this move by Plex. One thing to note is that two of the options under privacy only showed up recently so if anyone doesn't see all of the settings Will mentioned, make sure you are running the latest version. I had to update to see them.

So happy I went the Jellyfin route last year when I setup my media server on my Synology NAS. Works great on my phone and Roku devices. Zero regrets!

I just started with the whole home media server thing. I started with Jellyfin, but it is still way too young and not a good enough product yet in my opinion. so I switched to plex. thanks for highlighting this! I went ahead and made those changes thanks to your video

Fantastic Video! This is why I like youtube!! Thank you very much for the heads up. The privacy settings have been changed and I'll be paying close attention to Plex from now on.

Great post Rex - Thanks. There is no way any of us would catch this, let alone rectify it! 👍

Hmmm, I don't see those at all on my Plex and I update regularly. Will keep an eye out. Thank you!

I’ll be waiting for your Jellyfin tutorial. But in the meantime, I have followed all the advice in the comments. Thankyou!!

Gosh! Thanks for bringing that up! One more thing to do during vacation next week.

Thanks I would have never known about this if I hadn't watched your video. Great job!

Thanks Rex, I would never have known about these settings.

Thanks Rex! We all appreciate it.

Thanks for the demo and info, have a great day

While this sucks, I am so glad you have called it out and shown us this change. I was wondering why I was seeing these emails. That being said, I still love my Plex server and haven't moved to anything else because I love the interface that comes with it.

Thank you for making this video. I couldn't believe Plex did this. Gotta add to this. Jellyfish or heck even Emby is looking better and better by the day.

I had already seen that change and disable it. Either way, I think it was a good thing for Spacerex to do this video. What I can understand is why 4 people didn't like this. 🤷🏼

Thank you very much for this

Thanks really useful as I did not realise this!

Thank you for this video. I happened to notice Plex was sending me notification as of recent. Glad that is no longer the case.

Many thanks for this video!

Looking forward to the Jellyfin tutorial!

+1 for a video on setting up Jellyfin, along with pros and cons. Side note, I'm new to this channel but your content and delivery is absolutely fantastic. Zero prior experience with using a NAS. Now I'm thinking of getting one and binging your channel. 😆

I appreciate the video but man that took a long time to get to the point. Here’s the time stamp for those who just want to get skip ahead 4:22

Sad to see. Anyone remember when Google’s motto was “Don’t be Evil”? Now they are exactly that.

Thanks for the heads up, settings sorted

Thx, for making videos like this! ✌

"This settings page will look like a forum post” I thought you were joking. But sure enough... what a scummy thing for them to do. You know exactly what/why they are doing that for this setting. It's so disrespectful. I can't wait till Jellyfin gets secure port forwarding because as soon as they do I'm jumping ship.

Hi Will! Thanks for letting me know! Hope you're doing well!

I'm sure it's the algorithm, but I've been seeing your channel come up more and more respecting information that I've searched for and is totally relevant to what I need and you've been very helpful. So, thank you. I am happy to hear that you may be delving into Jellyfin videos. I'm a little overwhelmed by the thought of migrating to another media server, but help would be appreciated since using Plex is becoming untenable.

Plex could redeem itself if it made an entirely self-hosted option where you didn’t need its cloud services for anything at all. I’m a lifetime plexpass user but looking hard at jellyfin, and will probably switch over the holidays.

please keep us updated on plex privacy *even* if you do use jellyfin

I finally went and got myself a NAS earlier this year specifically to run Jellyfin (and also Kavita for my comics, etc.). I'm very happy with it, works like a charm One thing though, while Jellyfin is not a clone of Plex, it *is* a fork of Emby, created when Emby changed its license to fully closed source, proprietary and commercial. It has grown since then, of course, but that its origin.

Thanks for another great video. This one is significant in that it violated customer trust. Look forward the Jellyfin video. Keep up the good work.

Great information. Thank you.

You are my "go to" for anything on my Synology NAS. I so rarely need to look elsewhere. But I have one gripe... your audio. For nearly all KZfaq videos I don't need to adjust the computer volume. You don't have a booming voice. Which is cool. But for you, I have to pretty much double the level. Then when an ad kicks in, I'm blasted out of my chair. Please consider adjusting your levels a bit to make up for your soft spoken narrative. Honestly, this is a great channel. I appreciate the focus on Synology and your explanations into the nitty gritty of what and why exemplify a knowledge of IT well beyond just Synology.

I don’t hate them for trying to grow but wow this is one way to really pi$$ off paying customers. Be careful what you wish for plex, it could all come crashing down!

Thanks for the tips....I don't think I was too much affected since I don't have friends associated with my account. However, who knows what could happen, so I've set this settings to private. I paid a lifetime pass for Plex, and I really do enjoy the overall catalog system/cross platform interactivity/platform support. The main issues I've had is what kind of current naming conventions I need for getting special features with TV shows, film editions, etc. I'm mainly watching my content on Apple TV 4K, and also like that Infuse syncs with Plex and lets me watch 4K DD+ Atmos material (then I have a NVidia Shield for watching TrueHD Atmos). I'm chalking this as not so bad, but something to be aware of (just as you would privacy settings for Windows).

Thanks so much for providing this tip, and all the other amazing tips on this channel! This is why I subscribe, because this is where I find out about stuff that I would otherwise not have known.

How would Plex even have your contact list? This is the part I'm missing. NOWHERE in there do I have any contact info other than my own. Is it doing this through the app somehow accessing my contacts?

Thank you very much, that is really frightening. It's a shame how Plex is totally shooting itself in the foot here

I don't see any of that. When I click "Edit Profile," all I see is "USERNAME" and FULL NAME." Nothing else...

Thanks for this. I'd already done the privacy one, but missed the playback data. I've been primarily using Jellyfin for a while, but I run Plex, Emby, and Jellyfin side by side pointed at the same media library. I just bought Emby Premier on Black Friday, and weirdly, at least watching on my Windows PC, I have several weird issues with Emby that I don't have with Jellyfin. On my Nvidia Shield Pro, Emby seems to work fine.

didn't kmow about this. Thanks for the heads up.

Yeah, that's probably a GDPR violation. Especially if it's opt-out instead of opt-in

when the friend-feature got active i was informed and could choose to set everything to private. privacy settings are easily accessable under account\privacy. if you click on it you can read that you can opt out from sending some data. the data that is sent is not personalized. advertising consent settings are also easily reached and understanable presented. i personally dont see that big issue - you can also control what info your friends will get and what emails you will get from them.

Thanks for the video on this. My plex that came from the package center doesn’t have a profile option when I click on the dropdown in the top right. Are you using the latest version from plex instead of the package center? I was a little Leary of downloading the latest version from plex since it didn’t come through the package center.

Thanks so much for the video 👍

You know his pissed off when he says the same thing in various ways without realising it. haha

I'm running the latest (4.87.2), yet my settings look different from yours. I don't see the privacy window. I wonder if it just got changed

Thank you for this!

Really interested in a Plex alternative. But the transcoding accomplished in the server is a must.

I have installed yesterday plex on synology for streaming movies to AppleTV as kodi is too hard to run there. It was quiet uncomfortable to see so much social, so much interaction, to see tv stations, streaming services and so on. I was disabling many elements by feeling, it looks that I felt the direction, as those privacy settings were set just as you advised.

Hi Rex. love your content. Could I ask what editing software you use>? I like how you switch it up with transitions going from full screen talking head to smaller circle when demonstrating features. I am looking at getting something like Camtasia for video editing and wondered what you use.

Thank you for the alert.

Wish Plex would focus on things not related to other streaming things. There has been a bug in the iOS mobile app now for about a year and a half where if you are on cellular and streaming, the maximum it will let you stream at is 480p. I really wish they would fix this issue, it is so annoying, it's either native quality or 480p on cellular. It's not my server settings either, it's an actual bug.

Actually pretty easy to find these. But only if you are aware of them, and the need to change them. So - Thanks for that. ... ** Profile > Account Settings > Privacy (in left menu) > page that has very little dialogue in it - with 3 links at bottom - "Privacy Policy" - "AdChoices" - "Privacy Preferences" page > Click "Privacy Preferences" > a new dialogue box opens > UNTICK "Send Playback data to Plex" it has a blue background. > Close tab. Done. ... ** Profile: "View profile" > "Edit Profile" > Bottom of page... Under "Privacy" / "ACCOUNT VISIBLITY & ACTIVITY SHARING" / "Manage which of your Plex..." CLICK it > Change *everything* to "Private" other than "Account Visibility" which can only be made "Friends Only" at best: do that anyway > CLICK yellow SAVE button! > Close dialogue box. Done.

@spacerex yes, please do a Jellyfin tutorial!

@SpaceRex So i haven't updated my plex yet, is this happening prior to update but now i can disable or as long as i don't update i'm still good?

Plex drank the Google Meta Kool-Aid. It was just a matter of time. Stupid move. Thanks for this very informative video.

You FORGOT to put link for privacy settings in the description! @5:19 you say "click on this link here" and you scroll right past it. You want to help us? Put the link in the description. Thanks.

Thanks a lot!

I am not sure if Jellyfin does HDR tone mapping. This is the only reason I am with Plex as they do a pretty good job with it.

This video really makes me want to put Fiddler on my server and watch the web traffic in and out. Would be extremely easy to see the data being sent to them.

Thank You

Does Jellyfin need to use hardware transcoder like Zimaboard? Love your videos! I just bought a DS923+

I'm still getting emails about friends' activity even after changing the settings a while back. Does it have to be set under their account as well?

The first part you showed with the boxes doesn’t show up when I log in on ipad - when I go to that section all there is is a link to the “forum post” page you show next.

Thanks a lot

thanks for this

I switched to Jellyfin in a container. Took a bit more effort to setup, apps aren't as good, but at least they're not doing stuff like this. There's also Swiftfin for TvOS

Thx will be going over my settings. How does Plex have the email addresses of your friends & family? Would be interested to see a review of Jellyfin, especially since I can fully self-host it on my Synology. Hardest thing for me to give up would be Plexamp for music.

Just because you can disable it doesn't mean they will not force it to be enable to " improve user experience "

thank you!

a tutorial to move from plex to jellyfin would be godsent!

I swear, how to pick up a girlfriend, is an anime title!

is Jellifin on smart TVs?

The space has a history of open source projects (Plex was once, as was Emby) going closed source, which just ends up hurting end users. Fingers crossed Jellyfin doesn't go that way in years to come. Also, if you want another point in the "Cons" column for Plex? lets not forget their data breaches. Yes, multiple - there's so many breaches these days it's easy to forget that Plex was compromised in 2015 and then again in 2022. The way Plex Inc keeps integrating a personal media server with so much online connectivity and social prongs was, and remains, a terrible idea. Good luck with Jellyfin :)

I'm with you on Privacy. I don't understand this Millennial fetish (at least, it started with them) where everything is shared to everyone. I don't want ANYTHING shared online - to the point I refused to use any software which even allows it (i.e, Microsoft Office 2010, Quicken 6 (I think). It's almost impossible to be that "global" any longer, but it has significantly reduced the "new" products I'll consider if they allow, or require it.

So each user has to do this? I have family that barely knows how to use a computer, and I have to get them to modify their plex accounts?

Thank you SpaceRex for this video! I just changed it. If I have no friends (on PLEX) I wasn't in such a danger, was I?

Emby is the way to go

I am to the latest and did not see the settings. I am running plex on docker. Did not see those settings.

I'm not seeing any of these settings in my plex app.

Thanks for taking a strong stanc eon this

The problem with Jellyfin is the client side servers have lot and I mean a lot of bugs . The downside of free source software’s is the pace of implementation of the resolving bugs and introducing features is quite understandably slow . So unless the Jellyfin matures a bit we are stuck with money minting Plex

Please make a tutorial of how to install Jellyfin on a Synology NAS so that hardware transcoding works 🙂

I solved the problem by disabling plex itself. I moved over to Jellyfin which is AWESOME. 👏

this is very upsetting. i am a fan of plex and i hope they make changes soon, otherwise ill be switching to Jellyfin.

I'm leaning towards switching to Plex because Jellyfin has an issue with Collections that is totally broken and ruins the experience. It seems like the fix is a low priority to them, and that's one of the drawbacks to open source projects.

Hi SpaceRex ✋ , Can you show how to install HomeAssistant or HomeKit in Container Manager please? ✋ ✋ ✋

I'll be honest. even as a PlexPass member since near the beginning, it's getting harder and harder to justify continuing to use Plex myself. 😣This change is infuriating.

Cheers dude.

problem with jellyfin is the performance is not as good when transcoding on the same hardware.

A tutorial for setting up Jellyfin on TrueNAS Scale would be amazing. I've tried several and still can't get it to work.

It’s really sad to watch an app/company devolve because it ‘must’ grow.

what's wrong with Kodi, it rarely gets a mention these days?

I don't have any of those options under profile

10 min video to show where to click a couple of buttons ;) See around the 4:15 mark.

After clicking on "Edit Profile" I only see my image Username and Full Name no other setting like you have.