Plex Bridge for Jellyfin

Plex Bridge exposes remote Plex movie and TV libraries as a Jellyfin Channel while keeping Plex credentials on the Jellyfin server.

It is designed for a Jellyfin household that has authorized access to another Plex Media Server and wants to browse and play that shared media from Jellyfin instead of switching clients.

Status: early public release. Plex Bridge 1.0.3 has working remote library browsing and playback on Jellyfin 10.11.11, including large libraries, Jellyfin HLS playback, stream metadata, and HTTP range forwarding. See Known limitations before publishing it as production-ready software.

Features

• Remote Plex movie libraries
• Remote Plex TV libraries
• Series -> Seasons -> Episodes hierarchy
• Complete library pagination rather than a 50-item cap
• Plex metadata, ratings, genres, years, studios, and common provider IDs
• Proxied Plex artwork
• Multiple Plex media versions exposed to Jellyfin
• Plex video/audio/embedded-subtitle stream metadata mapped to Jellyfin MediaStream entries
• Server-side Plex token injection
• Signed local playback URLs that do not expose the Plex token
• HTTP Range forwarding and 206 Partial Content relay for seeking
• Jellyfin-side remuxing/transcoding
• Optional Plex-library allowlist
• Optional Jellyfin-user allowlist

Security model

Plex Bridge never puts X-Plex-Token in a Jellyfin client-facing media URL or RequiredHttpHeaders value.

Jellyfin client
    -> Jellyfin playback/transcode endpoint
        -> signed /PlexBridge/stream/... URL
            -> Plex Bridge validates signature + expiry
                -> Plex request with X-Plex-Token (server-side only)
                    -> media bytes/ranges relayed back through Jellyfin

Signed URLs authorize one Plex rating-key/media/part tuple until their expiry. They are bearer capabilities, so they should still be treated as temporary secrets.

Compatibility

The current release target is:

• Jellyfin Server 10.11.11
• .NET 9

Jellyfin plugin packages are ABI-sensitive. The Jellyfin.Controller and Jellyfin.Model package versions should match the Jellyfin server version being targeted.

Install from the Jellyfin plugin catalog

Once this repository has at least one published GitHub release, add its manifest URL in Jellyfin:

1. Open Dashboard -> Plugins -> Repositories.
2. Add a repository named Plex Bridge.
3. Use:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/domkalan/jellyfin-plugin-plexbridge/main/manifest.json

4. Save.
5. Open Catalog, find Plex Bridge, and install it.
6. Restart Jellyfin.
7. Open Dashboard -> Plugins -> Plex Bridge and configure it.

The repository's release workflow automatically writes the real GitHub release URL, MD5 checksum, target ABI, version, and timestamp into manifest.json.

Manual build

.NET SDK

Requirements:

• .NET 9 SDK
• zip

./scripts/package.sh

The version defaults to the value in VERSION.

To build a different plugin version:

./scripts/package.sh 1.0.4

To target another Jellyfin 10.11.x patch:

JELLYFIN_VERSION=10.11.10 ./scripts/package.sh 1.0.3

Output:

dist/PlexBridge-1.0.3-jellyfin-10.11.11.zip

The ZIP contains the plugin files at its root because Jellyfin's repository installer creates the versioned plugin directory itself.

Docker-only build

./scripts/package-docker.sh

Output is written to docker-dist/.

Manual installation

For a manually downloaded release ZIP, create a plugin folder yourself and extract the ZIP into it.

Example for the official Jellyfin Docker image where /config is your persistent configuration volume:

docker stop jellyfin
mkdir -p '/path/to/jellyfin/config/plugins/Plex Bridge_1.0.3.0'
unzip PlexBridge-1.0.3-jellyfin-10.11.11.zip \
  -d '/path/to/jellyfin/config/plugins/Plex Bridge_1.0.3.0'
docker start jellyfin

The resulting layout should be:

/config/plugins/
└── Plex Bridge_1.0.3.0/
    ├── Jellyfin.Plugin.PlexBridge.dll
    ├── Jellyfin.Plugin.PlexBridge.pdb   # when packaged
    └── LICENSE

Configuration

Plex server URL

Use the reachable URL for the Plex Media Server that owns the shared libraries, not plex.tv.

Example:

https://example.plex.direct:32400

Plex access token

Use a Plex access token belonging to an account that is authorized to access the remote server and libraries.

The token is persisted in Jellyfin's plugin configuration and used server-side only. Do not post it in GitHub issues or logs.

Internal Jellyfin URL

This is the URL Jellyfin's own FFmpeg process uses to reach the Plex Bridge streaming proxy.

Typical value:

http://127.0.0.1:8096

If Jellyfin uses a Base URL such as /jellyfin:

http://127.0.0.1:8096/jellyfin

Plex library section keys

Leave blank to expose all shared movie and TV sections. To restrict the plugin, enter comma-separated Plex section keys.

Allowed Jellyfin user IDs

Leave blank to allow all Jellyfin users to browse the Channel, or enter comma-separated Jellyfin user GUIDs.

Plex fetch batch size

Plex Bridge fetches large folders from Plex in batches and assembles the complete Channel folder for Jellyfin. The default is 50 records per Plex request; it is not a 50-item library limit.

Architecture

PlexChannel (IChannel + IRequiresMediaInfoCallback)
        |
        +-- PlexClient ----------------------------> Plex Media Server
        |      | library XML / metadata                  ^
        |      +-----------------------------------------+
        |
        +-- ProxyTokenService
        |      | signed local URL
        |      v
        +--> PlexBridgeController
                   | validates HMAC + expiry
                   | resolves Plex media part
                   | injects X-Plex-Token
                   | forwards Range / Content-Range
                   v
              Plex Media Server

Known limitations

The current direct-source implementation does not yet provide:

• Plex PIN/JWT sign-in and automatic shared-server discovery
• Plex universal playback-decision reservations
• Plex-managed transcoding fallback when the remote server refuses original-quality media because of bandwidth policy
• External Plex subtitle sidecars as signed Jellyfin subtitle streams
• Watch-state/timeline synchronization back to Plex
• Plex collections, Watchlist, Live TV, music, or photos
• Correct concatenation of legacy multi-part movie files; only the first part is exposed
• A native Jellyfin library/STRM mode for clients with weak Channel support

Channel support varies between Jellyfin clients. Jellyfin Web is the recommended first compatibility target.

Troubleshooting

Channel is empty after correcting credentials

Jellyfin caches Channel folders. Current releases increment their Channel data version when cache-breaking metadata behavior changes, but an older failed result may still require a server restart or Channel cache refresh during development.

License

Plex Bridge is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE.

Plex and Jellyfin are separate projects. Plex Bridge is not affiliated with or endorsed by Plex, Inc. or the Jellyfin project.