Given the recent news about Plex soon charging for remote access, I wanted to finish up my switch to Jellyfin.

What tools/methods have you all used to migrate watch history to Jellyfin?

I have a few family members in there, and would like to get everything switched over without resetting their watch history.

  • HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    All the folks saying “just buy the lifetime pass” gonna be in for a big disappointment in about 5 years

    • bread@feddit.nl
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      2 hours ago

      I’ve had a lifetime pass for years, but have considered making the switch several times. So far I’ve held back because, and correct me if I’m wrong, there are tools to transfer watch state, but not ratings, and while there’s a plugin for dynamic collections, it’s based on tags, so you can’t just have a collection based on something like rating. My library also contains “custom” shows where there’s no match for it online, so I’ve manually assigned it some details.

    • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      I got the lifetime pass 5 years ago. I’ve switched to JF because of the disappointment so far about a year ago.

      JF is exactly what I wanted and needed plex to be, and everything added since is a worsened product. The lifetime pass was an attempt at getting the peace of mind of “then you just have it”. If anything, only FOSS can give that.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yep. Enshitification behavior doesn’t cease once you’re technically a paying customer. If they hadn’t made a habit of enshitification. Clawing features away to put behind a paywall I’d give them some support. But I prefer foss anyhow. And for myself, I’m not missing anything.

      • Obelix@feddit.org
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        10 hours ago

        And those lifetime subscriptions are also a trap. They know that you have the money and are willing to pay and that you’re using their service. Do you really think that some business suit will be satisfied by your onetime payment back in 2022?

    • WordBox@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      If we got 5yr it’s more than paid for itself. Even FOSS needs support - stop whining and support good things.

      • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Yes, do donate to FOSS projects. At least that money will go to people who do the actual work and not to pad corporate profits.

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        Thing is, Plex turns out to be less and less of a good thing with each passing day. Bloat, spying, removal of features, price hikes etc.

        If you want to pay for software that is good, there’s always Emby.

        • superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 hours ago

          Is there any evidence that Plex has been spying? Genuinely curious. Sure they are closed source so we cant prove they are not.

          • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            There was the time that users started receiving emails from Plex telling them about other users and the shows they’ve been watching on their personal server, without permission. Spooked the hell out of me. There was allegedly a pop up that explained this new “feature” that was supposed to function as an opt-in. Problem was it worked more like an opt-out, as many of us never received the pop up, and weren’t even aware of the feature until people reached out to us to let us know Plex was sending them Emails about our library content.

        • WordBox@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Already paid for Plex and it works. Im not in favor of every change they’ve made, but it’s still damn solid and takes money to run.

          The point being these whiners aren’t going to run off and support FOSS/alternatives… Just leech.

          • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            Yeah but you could pay for Emby and not deal with all the bloat and removed features and such. Or use Jellyfin for free and have the same experience. Plex’s value proposition is shrinking by the day.

      • HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee
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        19 hours ago

        PLEX is not FOSS, plex is a proprietary fork of XBMC.

        My point is that in 5 years a lot of these plex users will wish they made the switch to jellyfin sooner.

        • keyez@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          I just upgraded to lifetime and also use jellyfin but right now it only does 80% of what Plex does in my workflow so gonna use it until I can’t anymore.

        • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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          15 hours ago

          Or Plex currently does everything they need it to, and $120 for 5+ years of keeping that going without any interruption of service is very reasonable. In the meantime, jellyfin will only get better and there might even be other options available by then.

          Stop trying to make the issue black and white, one-size-fits-all. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for people to use both Plex and Jellyfin.

          • HappyTimeHarry@lemm.ee
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            9 hours ago

            Or sunk cost fallacy, but whatever helps you justify paying $120 for software i guess. I dont think its a black and White one size fits all thing, i just have seen this patter before with other software, and it was already happening with plex before the price increase.

            • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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              5 hours ago

              It’s not sunk cost, dude. We agreed that $120 will get them 5 years of service that meets their needs. Even if they switch to jellyfin after 5 years, they still got their money’s worth.

              It’s only sunk cost if they are worse off than if they had switched earlier. I guess if you’re arguing that they would still have $120 if they switch today, I would argue they should still pay that $120 toward jellyfin’s development. And that’s assuming they have time to switch to jellyfin AND it fits 100% of their usecases, either of which could be untrue.

            • amorpheus@lemmy.world
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              7 hours ago

              whatever helps you justify paying $120 for software

              Does that sound like a lot to you?

              Considering the use I got out of it, even if I switch to something else tomorrow, the cost for the lifetime pass was peanuts. I’m sure others making that decision based on the situation today will feel the same in a few years. If Plex seems like the best solution today it’s not going to fall off the cliff before $120 were worth it.

              Not like FOSS projects are immune to bad decisions, and then you either fork it yourself or depend on unpaid volunteers to keep the version you like alive. There’s always some risk.

        • WordBox@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          I know it’s not FOSS. These whiners aren’t going to support any project - FOSS or not- just whine.

          If it takes 5 years to reach that conclusion… A) it’s an easy switch, B) probably saved Jellyfin devs a bunch of moans, C) no regerts.

      • MadBigote@lemmy.world
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        19 hours ago

        I don’t get the people down voting you… It’s not like services are free. I’ve been paying for Plex since 2019, and I just recently got a lifetime pass. It’s only fare to pay for it to use it …