While you use Plex, we may collect information about you and the devices you use. This page describes the data we may collect and allows you to opt-out of providing certain pieces of information to us.
We take your privacy seriously and will not sell any data about your personal library content or share any data about your personal library content with third parties for their use. If you’d like more details on how we collect, use, and transfer your information, please review our Privacy Policy.
December 2021 changes: reclassified interaction data and added a new Apple App Privacy section.
Server / Library Data
Apple App Privacy
Like other online services, Plex collects and stores information about you. Having this information helps us provide and improve our services, communicate with you, provide offers to you, and make informed decisions about where to invest our resources.
We store general information about your account, like email address, and your subscription plan if you have a Plex Pass. This includes your plan type (e.g., monthly, yearly, lifetime), how you purchased it (e.g., in-app purchase on iOS), and how much you paid.
We also store information that tells us how you learned about Plex when you signed up or purchased a subscription (ex: you clicked on an ad in Google search results, or came in via an email promotion).
Plex collects data about the specific version of the applications you are using to connect to our services.
Application Data | Sample |
---|---|
Product | Plex for Android |
Version | 6.3.2.1332 |
User Agent | okhttp/2.6.0 |
Player | ExoPlayer |
Server Version | 1.7.5.4035-313f93718 |
We also collect information from the device that you use to access Plex services. Collecting this information allows us to invest our engineering resources to improve our applications on the platforms that would benefit the most customers.
Device Data | Sample |
---|---|
Device Identifier | 123456789abcdfe-com-plexapp-android |
Platform | Android |
Platform Version | 6 |
Vendor | HTC |
Model | htc_e56ml_dtul |
Name | HTC_X9u |
Screen Resolution | 1920×1080 |
Architecture | arm64-v8a |
Layout | Mobile |
Total Memory (RAM) | 7640 |
Power Status | battery |
Display Status | hdmi |
Orientation | landscape |
Smart Watch Connected | Android Wear |
When you connect to Plex services, we also collect some information about your network and your connection.
Network Data | Sample |
---|---|
Secure Connection | True |
Network Link Type | wifi |
Network Status | offline |
IP Address | 52.18.201.205 |
Session Length | 7605 |
Playback Session ID | 123456789abcdfe-com-plexapp-android |
In order to properly report aggregated user counts to our service providers, we collect information about the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data used to support our live TV and DVR products. This collected information may include your zip code, local television provider (if applicable), and is only shared with our service provider in aggregate.
In order to provide the best media viewing experience possible, we need to collect information about how our products are being used by our customers.
Collecting playback data allows us to understand what types of content our customers are watching or listening to (movies, tv shows, music) and how that media plays (direct vs transcode). Video and audio codec data is collected to improve playback support.
Generalization of playback data
Based on feedback from the Plex community, we generalize some of the data we collect. Before our applications send us certain information, we round the values into buckets that give us the general usage data we need without providing details that could potentially be used to identify what you’re watching. Those fields are:
Playback data we collect
Playback Data | Sample |
---|---|
Timestamp | 2017-08-30 06:53:17 UTC |
Identifier | com.plexapp.plugins.library |
Session Identifier | 5e6732e8-5da0-4cd9-85ba-2105630ff058 |
Playback Time | 2500 |
Server Type | shared |
Connection Type | relayed |
Playback Origin | library |
Was the item autoplayed? | false |
Latency (in milliseconds) | 500 |
Playback Count | 1 |
Video Decision | transcode |
Audio Decision | transcode |
Subtitle Decision | transcode |
Protocol | hls |
Container | mkv |
Video Codec | h264 |
Audio Codec | aac |
Subtitle Format | srt |
Context | auto-playqueue |
Reason | quality |
Error (if applicable) | “Couldn’t create playback session” |
You can opt-out of sending us certain playback data. This option applies to playback data for your Personal Local Content (media stored on your own private server) and when streaming Personal Local Content owned by another user. When you opt-out of sending playback data for your account, it will apply to all Plex clients and servers that you are logged in to.
Playback data you can opt-out of | Sample |
---|---|
Bit Rate | 1000 |
Duration | 1800 |
Resolution | 1920×1080 |
Offset | 600 |
Completion Status | completed |
Whenever an item is played, data can be reported by both the server that hosts the content and the Plex client playing it. If you play an item from your own server, opting-out will apply to both your client application and your server.
As described above, client playback data does not identify what content was played, does not identify what server the content was played from, does not identify the owner of the server that the content was played from, and is generalized.
Similarly, the server playback does not identify what content was played, does not identify which client accessed the content, does not identify the user who played it, and is generalized.
Changes made to this setting will also apply to all Managed Users in your Plex Home.
If you watch or listen to content from third parties such as Free Movies and TV, News or Podcasts, we store information about what you viewed, the service it came from, and when it was published.
We store the list of News categories you followed and the list of content you’ve muted. We also store the list of podcasts you’ve saved to “My Podcasts” and the shows you’ve saved to “My Shows”.
If you create Managed Users on your account, we store information about the Plex Home and the users created.
We also store your list of Plex Friends and the sharing settings you configured if you allow them to access one or more of your libraries.
When you use the Watch Together feature, we record information about the session including who initiated it and who joined.
We store the basic information about the libraries you’ve created on your Plex Media Server. This includes the name of the library, what type it is (Music, Movie, etc), scanner, agent, language, and dates it was created, updated, last scanned, and deleted. This information is used in order to display the sharing settings page.
We collect and store additional information required for certain features to function. This includes:
Plex uses your IP address to roughly estimate where our customers are when using our services.
Derived Location | Sample |
---|---|
Country | US |
Region | PA |
City | Pittsburgh |
Collecting feature interaction data allows us to understand what parts of our product are being used on a regular basis and when our customers may be having trouble discovering certain features.
Example: what we collect when someone performs a search
Feature Interaction | Sample |
---|---|
Page | home |
Pane | null |
Action | searchinput |
Mode | null |
Type | null |
Example: what we collect when someone plays a movie from the pre-play screen
Feature Interaction | Sample |
---|---|
Page | preplay |
Pane | null |
Action | play |
Mode | null |
Type | movie |
In addition to the information described above, Plex collects anonymized data when users interact with our services. This includes:
Field | Sample |
---|---|
Server Published? | true |
Number of User Accounts with Server Access | 2 |
Library Type (movie, music, photo, show) | movie |
Library Language | en |
Library Agent | com.plexapp.agents.imdb |
Library Scanner | Plex Movie Scanner |
Total Number of Items in Library | 57 |
Number of items in library based on unique combination of container, video codec, and audio codec. | Container: mkv Video Codec: h264 Audio Codec: ac3 Number of items: 33 |
Timestamps indicating the last time an item was added and played for each unique combination of container, video codec, audio codec. | Last Added At: 2017-09-26 12:35:42 UTC Last Played At: 2017-09-26 11:24:13 UTC |
If you opt-out of sending us playback data, we will also stop sending the data described in the Server / Library section above. Opting-out will apply to all servers owned by your user account.
In late 2020, Apple added a new App Privacy section to the app store listings for all iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS apps. This section offers more detail on the data listed on the Plex app store page.
As described above:
This data is linked to your Plex user account.
Privacy Preferences Deprecated June 2024 is a premium feature and requires a Plex Pass subscription.
Learn More