How to Change Online Media Sources Settings
In addition to your local media content, Plex provides the ability to watch Live TV and stream free movies and TV online.
You can also have Plex search for content available on streaming platforms, or show activity from your friends.
If any of these options seem interesting to you, or you wish to turn them off, then there are multiple options in Plex to allow you to change those settings.
This article will explain how you can adjust these settings to your liking through the settings on your Plex server, or the Plex.tv API.
The Online Media Sources settings
As mentioned, Plex allows you to manage the settings for options such as Live TV, streaming movies or TV online, or discovering content sources.
Plex has the following settings that can be changed through its Web app:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Live TV | Plex provides free live TV channels you can watch directly from Plex for free without the need for any tuner hardware. |
| Movies & Shows | Allows you to watch free movies, documentaries, and TV shows for free or rent. |
| Discover Source | Show trending or popular content from your Plex Media Server, Plex's free movies & shows services, other streaming services, or if the content is available to rent or buy. |
| Display "More Ways to Watch" Search Results | When searching for content, Plex will show other streaming options for the content you are searching for in the search results. |
| Display Availabilities from Other Streaming Services on Detail Pages | For media content available on streaming services, Plex will show which streaming service has the content available on the detail page for the content. |
| Display Activity from My Friends on Detail Pages | Shows you the activity of your friends such as their rating for content, items they have marked as watched, items they have added to a watchlist, or messages they have written. |
The settings values
There are up to three possible values that can selected for each of the settings. Some settings may only have two possible values, while others will have all three.
The three possible values are described in the table below:
| Value | Description |
|---|---|
| Enabled | The option is enabled for the administrator and managed user accounts. |
| Disabled | The option is disabled for the administrator and managed users |
| Disabled for Managed Accounts | The option is disabled only for managed (Plex Home) accounts on the Plex server. |
Using the Plex settings
To opt out of Discover Together, use the following steps:
- Log into your Plex server as an administrator, and then click the Settings - the wrench - link in the upper-right corner of the Plex server page.
The 'Plex Settings' icon - In the top-left, click the Online Media Sources option from the menu.
The 'Online Media Sources' option in the Plex settings - For each of the options, click the Edit link next to each option and then select the option from the dropdown. Click the Save Changes button to save the option.
Using the Plex.tv API
You can also change the Online Media Sources settings using a script by calling the Change Opt-Out Settings API endpoint of Plex.tv.
You can change one setting at a time using the API endpoint so to change all settings you will need to make six requests to the endpoint.
To change a setting using the API, you can use the following steps:
- Get the Plex token for the administrator account of the Plex server.
- Call the Plex.tv - Get Users API endpoint to get the
UUIDfor a user. - Copy the setting from the Change Opt-Out Settings API page along with the value you would like to change it to and add all parameters to the following request:
POST https://plex.tv/api/v2/user/{uuid}/settings/opt_outs?key={opt_out_key}&value={opt_out_value}&X-Plex-Token={plex_token}Replace the following placeholders in the above command:
Placeholder Value {uuid}The user UUID from step 2. {opt_out_key}The settings key from step 3. {opt_out_value}The settings value from step 3. {plex_token}The Plex token from step 1.
Once the request has been submitted, the setting on the Plex server will now be changed.