This article discusses how to allow your Plex family users to watch and record live TV using the Plex DVR functionality.
More Info
If you search online, you will likely encounter a thread from 2018/2019 telling you that you cannot delegate permissions to record to managed users (family accounts). While this was accurate, it is no-longer so. Update your Plex server before continuing (version 4.87.2 as of writing).
Note: A default, Free version of Plex does not support any Live TV playback or recording at all. In order to make use of TV Tuner functionality, you will require a Plex Pass subscription. If you do not have a Plex Pass subscription, the menus and options mentioned in this article will not appear on your user interface.
Once you have an active Plex Pass subscription:
- You must use your administrator account to configure your tuners (Settings > Manage > Live TV & DVR). Click to add a device and successfully tune it to enable Live TV features.
- Secondly, you must setup a library with write access into which TV will record. You will need one for TV Programs and one for Films as Plex will treat each slightly differently.
- Update your user permissions by clicking Setting > Plex Home and click on a managed user.
- Along the top of the user window click ‘Restrictions’.
- Under ‘Live TV & DVR Access’ click Edit.
- Change the setting to either ‘Allow Live TV Only’ (to prohibit recording TV) or ‘Allow Live TV and DVR access’ to allow Live TV recording.
- Ask your users to exit and restart their Plex apps/web browsers to apply the permission changes. They will now find that they have access to recording functions on the DVR.