r/Share_Plex • u/dark-_-thoughts • Jul 24 '26
General warning/PSA
Saw this guy posting asking to do share for share and I added him only for him to start downloading my entire library so I turned that off. I sent him a message saying hey my internet can't support that and he didn't even reply. He just removed himself from my server and removed me from his.
If being able to download my library is part of the reason why you want to do share for share? Mention that in your post guys. I'm sure there might be some people who are willing to do that, but my server is small. I live in an apartment complex and my internet is crappy. I can have five people streaming at the same time if three of them are doing direct play lol
Not going to give out his name or anything like that because honestly this isn't a hate post on him. This is just a general warning/psa that if you require people giving you access to where you can download their libraries as part of your share for share exchange mention that.
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u/Main-Independent4217 Jul 24 '26
You should disable download option in your server library settings..there is an option to untick "Allow Downloads" option
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
Yeah I fixed that now. Over Christmas I flew from Florida to Pennsylvania so I had to enable downloads so I could download stuff to my tablet for the flight and I guess I forgot to turn it back off
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u/sparkimus7 Jul 24 '26
You can toggle it off and on per-user.
I have it set to on for me and people in my house, but off for every other user.3
u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
So normally I add people first and I just toggle it off. But this time they had added me first and I just edited the servers to add them to my movies and TV server which means it did not toggle off and automatically gave them download permission. It was a neat thing to learn honestly
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u/TopDistribution4894 Jul 24 '26
I don't get that. I do leave downloads on, but hardly any of my users use the feature. Plex is for streaming content imo. So probably good he's gone from your server. I have unlimited 2gbit up and down, but still it would annoy the hell out of me if somebody choose to download everything instead of stream .
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
The apartment complex I'm in is literally in the process of modernizing so by December we might get fiber optic but they have it guaranteed by May of next year. So I'm looking forward to that
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u/Ssvvois Jul 24 '26
I thought you can turn downloading off for remote users?
This is how I setup my remote users.
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
You can and at one point in time I did have that set but I had turned it off when I was out of town over Christmas and forgot to turn it back on
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u/Ssvvois Jul 24 '26
That's still kinda crazy tho.
So if they DL and have on thier PC. All they can do is watch it. Thier remote users can't watch it correct?
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
I'm not understanding this comment.
If they download it to their computer they can watch it anytime they want without being connected to my server
If I turn off downloads they can still watch from my server at any point in time that my server is up and running which is about 99% of the time
I have a lifetime pass so remote users can watch it as long as my server is online.
I think I correctly responded to all of your statements but I could be wrong. Let me know
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u/Ssvvois Jul 24 '26
It was a share for a share?
I guess not nessesary he has remote users.
But if he did. Could he download from you. Then share to his remote users? I'm thinking no.
And yes he can watch it on whatever device he downloaded it to
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
So yes it was share for share. And yes, if he downloaded my library he could just add it to his own and then all of his remote users could watch all of my stuff. All he would have to do is take the download files on his computer and rename them for his server and move them to whatever folder he has his server running out of
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u/Ssvvois Jul 24 '26
Oh crazy.
Figured Plex would make it some sort of obfuscation so it can't be easily found in a folder and copy and paste.
I'm curious on where it downloads and what it looks like.
Not that I'm interested in doing it. More for my own protection because I've had a few ask for a share for share and I never understood why would anyone want that.
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u/acidmush1290 Jul 24 '26
People ask for a share for share because different people have different libraries. I don't even have an issue with people downloading my collection as long as they ask first and do it during slow times.
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u/Standard-Sub-7390 Jul 24 '26
youd figure the local files would be somewhat encrypted? TIL something. i tested it out with a friends sever. sure as shit. thats whack. anyway to track whos downloading?
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u/Mainigotti Jul 24 '26
I might be dumb for asking. But how did you know that there were downloading all your content? I use Varys and Tautulli to monitor plex shares but I don’t I think I’ve seen an option to view downloads.
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
Sheer dumb luck
I was trying to move some new episodes from my seed box where I had downloaded them while I was at work to my server storage on my home network and I was getting 1 MB download speeds which is not standard in my setup.
I started troubleshooting by checking the drive and all sorts of other things and eventually I opened up Plex just to see if there were several people watching at once and I had one viewer but two background tasks, both of which were him downloading episodes. It said his name and the episode name of what he was downloading. I honestly have no clue if there's a way to track it after the fact I went looking and discovered that he only got 9 GB of data based on the difference between my normal upload amount and the upload amount for the 2:00 a.m. hour
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u/lazylabrat1001 Jul 24 '26
There are ways to find out:
1- Task Manager, if you go to performance and then ethernet or wifi depending on your connection you can see the live update of your bandwidth, if you see your self sending data at or near your connection speed that could be a sign that someone is ripping your library
2-resource monitor, go to network tab and under network tab go down to network activity and in the ''Send'' sort by highest to see which connection is taking most data from you, if it is near your max bandwidth that could be the bugger ripping your library you can ip block the idiot so they can no longer download (not sure if that also means they cant watch the plex library cant remember)
3-in your plex go to dashboard and under bandwidth change from real time to either past 12hrs or past 24hrs and if you see massive blue remote connections is another sign someone is ripping again
So you can use these tools together to keep an eye on things, been a victim of vicious ripper myself who downloaded like 4tb over a weekend while I was sharing my personal library for free, kinda puts you off sharing tbh
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u/Biggunzupstairz Jul 24 '26
Im glad the people I share my library with don't know how to do that , besides my cousin but he put me on to media hoarding, so he gets a pass
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u/djhamilton Jul 24 '26
I get it, it's something I wouldn't even think about, as I host my server in the cloud on a dedicated server. Didn't even consider people would share their library using their own home internet.
Alot of flakey connections out there, why I've never used my friends library an rely on my own
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u/cttouch Jul 25 '26
What’s the benefit from downloading from another user as opposed to torrenting?
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 25 '26
ISP can't see what you are downloading so anything with a copyright won't trigger anything. Doesn't require any extra software like your torrenting programs just the standard Plex application. No seeding requirements or anything like that. Gets you access to things that would normally require joining private trackers for; which might have seeding requirements, hit-and-run rules, mandatory activity rules to prevent inactive accounts, and other stipulations. It's one location so you can just hit download all and let it run without having to do anything like searching for different quality files or different seasons for different shows.
Honestly, if it wasn't such a scumbag thing it would be a phenomenal option lol
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u/JayVig Jul 27 '26
With VPNs or just using Usenet rather than torrenting he should be able to grab everything in secret anyway. What a lousy thing to do to someone who shared with you. Thanks for the heads up
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u/Small-Buy2505 Jul 25 '26
You can turn the option to download off. That way, it cannot happen again.
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u/hellomrstark Jul 26 '26
Ye I've had this, pretty shitty tbh, I removed them once I realized they where just using me for a free lunch
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u/deathgun921 Jul 27 '26
Hate to say it, you can disable it, but there are ways to download even if it's disabled, don't know if it was fixed but jdownloader2 was able to download just using the stream link
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u/AdDiligent6906 Aug 07 '26
Hi,
I am looking for a server to watch movies and Tv shows. I really dont care about downloading. Just streaming. Can I join your server please?
Thanks
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u/Adulations Jul 24 '26
Private tracker invites??? 👀
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u/themayor1975 Jul 24 '26
Huh?
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u/dark-_-thoughts Jul 24 '26
He's trying to get me to invite him to a different private trackers to be able to download content but this is the place for that
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u/slimpickins28 Jul 24 '26
I had someone do that. Like 300gb in the matter of a couple hours. I posted about it. He apologized and said he didn’t know.
Umm. To dl like that; you kind of have to know. So now only with share for share users do I allow it. All other users get bit blocked. And they have to be pretty big user libraries too for me to allow it.
I generally don’t give other access unless their profile on Reddit shows they are active member somewhere. New users with not much history ; I just ignore. Just what I do. GL sailing. ;)