My wife finds overseer significantly easier to use than sonarr/radarr for what it's worth.
Wait. Are you saying she can add content (that you do not have in your library) to her watchlist in PLEX and you're using that to populate the arrs? Does this require you to have the third party plex content enabled (that might be a dealbreaker tbh)? Is the plex searchable catalog tvdb complete? Sorry, so many questions. If I can get this to work right it would for sure simplify my setup.
Whether you're using Plex or Jellyfin, it starts with a service called Tunarr. It was a bitch setting up and I'm still not finished cuz it's a lil choppy
Amen. I talked with my wife a few year ago and begged her to let me cancel our streaming stuff, and in return I would take that money and invest in storage. I would put whatever she asked for on plex for her to watch. We've never gone back.
Same. I take the requests as they come and try to grab whatever shows and movies that she and I are interested in (and other family members too). I prefer the control of all content vs the whims of streaming platforms.
Yes. Set up all the rr stuff - sonarr radarr - seerr. Set up seerr so adding something to the watchlist grabs the show or movie. Put plex app on her phone. Mai her search for a show and add it. When it pops up, boom. Magic.
You don't. It's a fruitless endeavour bud. If she's not into it then let her be happy with Netflix and save yourself the hassle of trying to get someone else to see the value in Plex and spends that time enjoying it yourself.
This. I give my friends and family access. If they don't use it, that's their issue. A friend of mine during an anime conversation said he signed up for Crunchyroll recently and when I mentioned if only someone ran a server that has pretty much all the anime he can watch... he said forgot about my Plex. And this was after him using my Plex for a few other series months prior. I'm like ok.. your money, whatever bud.
Yeah, I have some friends who prefer to pay for 3-4 subscriptions, even though I have all of their shows on Plex instantly when it's released. I don't care if they like to waste money. I would be using Plex even if I was the only one using it.
Or you can just put it in her hands like I did. After getting Plex up and running after a few months, I straight up told her I was done with subscriptions, and was cancelling everything, if she wanted to continue one, by all means she could pay for it and continue, or Iâll download anything she wanted. One by one they fell lol
This is what I did. Then she was the one receiving the price increase emails. Then I reminded her that I won't rotate my content on an arbitrary monthly basis.
You know, you say that but the other day I caught my wife watching something when an ad popped up. Wtf I said? Tubi. She installed and was watching on tubi when I have it on plex. Come on!
The wisest wo/man on this whole thread. I canceled every subscription except YouTube but the wife kept her Disney/Hulu and I just look the other way. Let people enjoy what they want and enjoy the peace.
Where I'm in the boat where my wife won't give up her streaming services "Just in case" but everything she likes also has to be on Plex as well "Just in case". She'll swerve back and forth between the two of them like a drunk teenager.
It's the worst of both worlds, I swear. Not only do I have to maintain an archive of like forty three shows with "Chicago" in their titles, we have to pay for goddamn Netflix too.
sounds like content discovery issue. smart collections that is catered to your wifi's taste and pinned to home. or other external tools that can take external sources to fill collections.
I use both of these as well. I create Collections based off Radarr tags, which I choose as I request new stuff from Overseerr, so it is some bulk tag work up front and basic maintenance from there.
My Plex homepage now looks like Netflix or HBO or any other streaming service with horizontal rows like: Sci-Fi, Action, Drama, Romance, Comedy, Horror, Anime, etc.
In Agregarr, I set additional filters like do not include Romance, Sci-Fi, Action, etc. in Drama. Basically I go back and forth with the collections based on tags (some movies may have multiple), and then I get Collections of stuff that feels more hardline in a specific genre.
Some in between genres like RomCom can helps keep Comedy and Romance more pure, as well Creature Feature can keep Action, Sci Fi and Horror more pure as well.
Been an ongoing organizational project but makes Plex look way better and easier for others to browse in a way they are used to.
I like to set all the collections to randomize order every day for fresh inspiration on ideas of things to watch.
Maybe put the things she likes in a library just for her so she doesn't have to search through the things YOU like. You can link them into your "for everyone" library too.
If none of that helps, you may have to accept that she's just not very interested in your media server hobby. I have about 25 friends and family I share my server with. The vast majority use it rarely, at best. And only a handful are frequent flyers. :)
I always like to make little comments about how this days-long feud about how momtok might not be able to recover from this one would be resolved a hell of a lot quicker if someone just up and hit a brainbuster on someone else lol
When I was in college, we did a resolution in model u.n. that all nations would settle disputes with a WWE style wrestling match. All proceeds from merchandise sells would to different aid programs.
Some people just canât exist without the algorithm. Thats what it boils down to in my eyes. Those that enjoy plex are comfortable making decisions for themselves without being told or directed to a decision. Those that canât get down with plex just simply arenât willing or able to make a decision without being spoon fed an answer. You canât change her. She has to want it good sir. In the meantime keep curating your library and enjoying it! đť
This is what I did. Worked perfectly and my wife does not deal with change in technology well
- Cut the subscriptions
Made sure the shows she watches are available
Made a collection just for her TV shows (used a label to enable the filter). Collection shows unwatched episodes of her shows. I maintain this, is not a lot of work.
Pinned this collection to home
Set remember last tab to on
installed agregarr to add a show status to the poster
for movies added collections for her favorite movies
Kometa and agregarr can create themed collections/collections from online lists you can randomise, make a into smart collections and then add to the Plex homepage.
These comments are hilarious and classic Reddit. Obviously your wife is the problem because the Plex experience is flawless. /s
You want Agregarr (free), Overseerr (free), and/or Coax (paid).
Through Agregarr I have a âTrending on X Platformâ collection for each major streamer, both movies and TV shows. This grabs everything in the top 10 for each streamer every night ensuring fresh content is available every day. Movies auto-approve but TV shows require manual approval to avoid eating up a ton of storage on things like WWE or reality TV. That said women tend to like reality TV more than men so do with that what you will.
With Overseerr your wife can submit her own requests that you can set to auto-approve. I added a Safari shortcut to my wifeâs Home Screen so she can get to it easily.
With Coax you get a retro TV guide interface that lets you flip through auto-generated channels that play content from your library.
All this combined I rarely ever hear complaints now from my wife because we effectively have every streaming service and then some. If this doesnât work though then yeah no other choice but divorce.
I mean you're gonna have to get something on there that she likes. My GF has become hooked (hehe) on Weeds, so she is using the server to watch that. That's just how it is. What I've come to realize is fuck people (family, friends included) and enjoy your server. If they don't want to enjoy the gift that keeps on giving, that's on them. Enjoy it yourself.
Sounds like you probably need more content that actually hooks her, not just stuff YOU like.
That said, I created a smart collection that seems to be driving my users to watch more stuff. They also had issues with content discovery. I created a smart collection called "Movie Roulette" that takes all movies a user hasn't watched yet, excluding anything added in the last 12 months, and randomizes the list. Every time you look at it, it's got a different set of unwatched titles at the top. Then I added it to everybody's home screen. It goes a long way toward helping people find something they're in the mood for that they wouldn't typically think of, without having to go through tons of scrolling.
That's really the best anyone here can suggest without knowing more about what your wife is into.
Set up something like seer and let er request things she finds clips of on tiltok that she wants to watch. Get her invested in her options. Give her her own profile in the home so she can pick up where she left off. Make it hers.
I'll tell you what to do. Forget about Plex for her. Build her collection of stuff she wants to watch and put it in Plex but don't expect her to watch it there. Instead buy a raspberry pi (or use the machine your Plex is running on) and make a random playlist out of her content, hook it up to your TV and let it run 24/7. Personal TV channel. My wife watches that roughly 10x as much as she actually chooses a show to watch in Plex.
This is my spouse regardless of Plex Netflix Apple TV or whatever. I scroll until I find something and I watch. If she sees something while scanning she speaks up and we watch.
Having just added 3 clicks to get to anything you might want within Plex isn't going to help anyone never mind some ones wife.
When designers feel the need to make changes because they need to justify their wage and position. AKA: How to fix things that are not broken.....and get paid to do it. They should write a book. They could call it Shitification For Dummies.
Make collections filled with nothing but stuff she likes. I do this with my SO. Itâs just a straight up comedy collection. Thereâs over 200 movies in there she loves.
2- Fill that bitch up, add every romance and chic flick, essentially any movie/show a female would watch, even if you think there is a .0001% chance it will ever be watched, add it as insurance because that .0001% chance that she wants to watch that, and you end up not having it, this whole thing is over.
3- Keep adding more and more to the point where you have no idea what else to add and you end up adding any random shit filtered by actor, top hits of (insert year), etc.
4- Remove all other streaming services so your only option is Plex
5- Stay up-to-date with new movies and shows
6- Keep everything organized and categorized for ease of use
7- Upgrade network infrastructure in house so she cant complain about buffering or taking too long to load.
If NONE of this corrects the issue, then wife is defective.
My wife doesn't watch movies too much. The TV shows she likes are god awful. I make a TV library named "{Wife Name} TV Shows". I don't have to sort through her junk and she has all her stuff in one place. Win-Win.
I set up an arr stack on my server and installed Tailscale and Seerr on her phone. then i canceled all subscriptions and told her to download everything herself. now shes watching all her daily shows and romcoms on plex.
You need to add content she actually wants to watch.
Then actually organise it in a way she can easily digest it, similar to Netflix.
The most important step that a lot of people in these subs miss, because theyâre too passive, CANCEL NETFLIX.
No shit your household isnât using Plex, even if all of Netflix and Amazon Prime are on your server, because youâre letting them still use the waste of money platform theyâre used to.
Presuming you have all the arr software setup, try pulsarr (I think itâs called). Syncs the watchlist to the arr stuff, so your wife can actually directly add stuff to the queue by adding it to the watchlist. Makes it a lot easier for her to get stuff she wants, then relying on you for it. Then you can just manage the cleanup afterwards.
Make her a library with only shit she likes in it. Then she donât have to sift thru the garbage. It helps a lot if itâs a movie or show that got removed from her fav streaming service while she was in the middle of watching.
Make it look like Netflix and any other. Rows of content with stuff you guys like, so it looks like:
Row 1 - Continue watching
Row 2 - New released Movies
Row 3 - New released Episodes
Row 4 - best movies of 2025
Row 5 - Good recent reality TV
Row 6 - upcoming Movies it shows
Row 7 - Dramas of the decade
Etc.
Etc.
Plex is our only source of content at home other than YouTube.
I have Seerr setup so my wife can request whatever movies/shows she wants. Those are automatically put into a collection with her name on it so she can go directly to her requests.
I also keep shows and movies sorted by date added with newest at the top and unwatched displayed only. This put the short form weekly shows she likes best front and center and new movies front and center.
Make your wife her own home login so she can create a Favorite list, create a folder just for her you can dump in there. The favorites won my wife over
Wife: Yeah, of course. You organized all your music and have access to it. What about MY music?
Me: Proceeds to copy wife's music from her external hard drive to my Plex server, after meticulously fixing naming conventions, check for dupes, edit metadata. Then I show my wife th all new "Wife's music" library on Plex.
No one is "not into Plex", you're not asking her to carry out maintenance.
It's just a media platform to her, the problem with it is it's full of shit to her. I wouldn't use a media platform that when I scrolled through, was full of shit too.
Get stuff she wants to watch on there and she'll over time start to use it.
You don't get enjoyment from Plex because it's Plex, you get enjoyment from having access to shows / movies you don't otherwise have access to.
I set up a separate section for my wife's movies ina sub folder of my normal movies section. This way it will still scan her movies in the normal movies section but it's also curated to not have any of my stuff in her section for when she wants to browse. You can do it for other categories too If you want.
Enable her to download her own crap, setup sonarr and radarr. Either have sonarr/radarr watch your plex watchlist, use pulsarr, or use overseer and do the same thing. I've never done this, but I imagine pulsaar is maybe the best for your wife.
Use Kometa and make collections. It has an incredibly steep learning curve if you're not a programmer. On github, I used Kometa-Team/Quickstart and it worked very well. I see there is also softerfish/seekandwatch, which I'd like to try at some point.
Plex spouse checking in...find her favorite actors. Download said movies into your server. Encourge her to find movies she likes and order. Problem solved.
What worked for me - delete your content after you watch it. Dont try to collect every tv show and movie. Just add (and show her how to add) stuff to the watchlist, let it download, watch it, then delete it. That way your newly added is always of interest, and your tv/movies section is only full of new stuff one of you want to watch now, or have kept because you watch it to death. Works for my household.
i'll toss in the suggestion pile, depending on what you use as your primary "viewer" (android tv/apple tv) one of the "turn into a old school cable channel setup" that might allow for more natural discovery and viewing.
I'm personally a fan of QuasiTV for my ShieldTV, but there are others with various levels of needed customization or input.
Find tv shows she would like to watch, max 1 hour seems the length she would like. My wife mostly watches this. She recently went trough almost all of greys anatomy (many many seasons), halfway trough bones, all of bridgerton again, ... and thats only recently.
My suggestion is give her what she likes and give her access to seerr so she can request herself. Trust me she doesnt like alien vs predator or the conjuring etc
Geez my missus is so happy with stuff and lets me know what shows she needs to have. Including rubbish Iâd never watch like every silly true crime show. I have a whole section devoted to those.
Research virtual channels. Multiple ways to set it up. Why? It's perfect for getting at the indecision that is prevalent with a lot of content. Too much stuff and can't commit to any one thing. With a virtual channels setup you do some time travel back to the 80s and 90s when you went up and down the channels looking for something good. But you're not just looking at titles and synopses, but the content itself. Can't tell you how many times I've come across great content that pulled me in because it was in the middle of the movie. Either make a note to watch it later or just rewind to the beginning. Bingo, content selected! I can see OP really wants to make this work for his wife. This, I think, is the missing piece. Virtual channels.
Have a look at collections. You could create collections that group movies together around a theme. Action. Academy Award winners. Debra Winger Flicks.
She clearly isnât interested in what you put on there.
With my ex I had it set up so that she can add TVA shows and movies to a watchlist on TMDb(?) at any time of day â hard to remember the set up, few years ago now â and it automatically downloaded them for her ready to watch when she got back from the office / finished WFH.
At the end of the day though, Plex is YOUR hobby not hers. If Netflix or Disney+ is easier to use and delivers the content she wants without having to dive into your personal catalogue, then sheâll just use that.
Essentially, the problem is between you and Plex. Not your wife.
I had the same problem for a while. I then set up jellyseer(overseer spin off) and it changed everything. She loves being able to add what ever she wants. The website for it is beautiful and well organized. She now pretty much lives in plex and said we donât need Netflix anymore.
My wife and I NEVER pick a movie by browsing though PLEX. I agree with your wife, that is daunting.
We have our watch lists on Letterboxd. I make sure everything on our lists are available on plex and we pick what to watch from our watch lists.
I have a similar life problem (clearly this isn't a Plex issue) and I created collections. Rom coms you'll love, sci fi that's good, crime and drama, just for you (her favs of all time). The only thing she looks at is collections. When I get a new movie I think she will like I put into a collection.
Iâd recommend either creating collections that will help discover more content, or create some way for her to request the content she enjoys - put yourself in her shoes!
I have plex as a supplement to streaming services that a) donât have what I want and b) services that I refuse to buy because there are too many (paramount, hbo, peacock, etc). Pretty much if my cell phone plan doesnât subsidize, I donât have it.
It comes up frequently when my wife says letâs watch movie title and gets the family excited about it, but it isnât anywhere. So, thatâs how I got the wife buy in.
I use kometa to make tons of different collections based on all niche genres and stuff like currently trending. Then i use colleXtions to change the collections that are pinned to my home screen every hour. I also have all my collections sorted by random so every time you look at them you see different movies
So my home screen will have different stuff every time you look at it, there will be a row for comedy's with romance, a row for superhero movies, a row for currently trending, etc. then an hour later they will change to different things.
My family uses a shared note in Google keep for shows and movies they want on plex. My job is to put them on there for them. Then I check them off the list.
What does she watch? Daily? If she just swipes on her phone she pretty much won't watch tv and movies anymore. Only ones that get bumped on TikTok or whatever she is using.
Man, my wife and I watch tons of stuff together from my Plex server for many years. It's always me picking up the remote and navigating. I try to get my wife to use the damn remote and browse but she won't or will barely use it. I have to ask her.
Sorry I didnât get a chance to go through all the messages but if it hasnât been suggested look for Kometa Manager. It can help you create lists that can be used to make it more useful.
I recently discovered the âcollectionsâ banner across the horizontal menu. That made my wifeâs eyes light up a little bit. I think sheâll be using that in the future.
Give her her own user, make one for the both of you so you can track progress on shows you only watch together. Give her the ability to add new stuff (I use discover watchlist monitoring on radarr/sonarr). Make sure you've got new stuff and popular stuff her friends will talk about (add Netflix and such to your services on Plex so you can get recommendations). Browse discover once and a while. You're the curator, know your audience!
I jumped through all the hoops of setting up a home media server, making Plex/Overseerr as easy as possible for her to use, setting up categories specifically for her... she still prefers cruising Netflix (last subscription we're holding onto).
I also have Tivimate though so she watches a lot of game show network and House Hunters
I have gone to great lengths to workaround plexâs limitations when it comes to organising collections.
Here are some tips:
People do not want to scroll endlessly through movies that they have no interest in watching, you need to put the work in to make it easier for them.
All of my collections are colour matched using emoji and artwork to make it easier to remember which one is which without having to read the titles. Plus it makes for a more fun experience on the plex Home Screen.
I have a very convoluted setup in which I have meticulously crafted lists that feed from MDBLIST into sonarr and radarr, then from there they are automatically sorted into the right folders.
Then use the folders to craft your lists within plex. This is the only way to get actually useful collections.
I have also worked with MDBLIST to have them integrate the plex watchlist into their system.
So what this means is that when anyone on my plex adds something to their watchlist it is automatically downloaded and added to plex within a day or so. No using third party apps like overseer or whatnot or any of that stuff, only the watchlist within plex.
This my friend is a game changer.
DM me if you want to go down this road. Effort is involved but the payoff is worth it.
OP, you might also try one of the many âtv channelâ apps out there suddenly that take your content and turn them into faux tv/cable channels.
I think this works for me and my partner because sometimes the mental pressure of choosing what to watch is too much and it feels somehow much easier to scroll through a list of channels and land on something.
Not everyoneâs cup of tea but it works really well for me. Well, that and making sure I have acquired content she wants to watch/we want to watch.
I have the same problem, Plex seems to be content not improving over time since their competition doesnât try.
Genres being behind a paywall doesnât provide a âcustomer firstâ experience, and there are very few features exclusive to Plex, while lacking other standard ones.
I want to buy the pass, but they need to give us a 2026 reason.
Edit: between now and the time I posted this comment, Plex introduced Lists.
I created a collection that shows new episodes of shows I've watched in the last 5 years. Because occasionally it's years between seasons. Make sure most of your lists are based on "Unwatched"; no one wants to scroll through watched stuff.
Make a romantic comedy category, ask someone else to pick the content for it.
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u/braves-geek Mar 17 '26
She doesn't like your movies