How to Change Your Display Name on Plex

Plex users have been complaining for years about not being able to create a separate display name from their username. Luckily, Plex finally listened to them—which means you can now change your Plex display name without affecting your username. Here’s how it works.

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Why Plex users want to change the display name

In addition to streaming your personal music collection to your mobile phone, many people use Plex to play music and movies on their home theater systems. However, as good as Plex is at streaming media, it had one annoying little glitch: users couldn’t change their display names.

With this, Plex users were stuck with displaying their usernames on all Plex screens. Since most usernames are long or include email addresses, this was less than ideal.

Plex users have been complaining about this for years. The problem was first noticed on Plex’s message boards in 2014, resulting in a year-long thread for the ability to create custom display names, with comments from hundreds of users.

How to change your Plex display name

Seven years later, but Plex finally listened to its users and released a fix for the problem. It’s relatively easy to implement, but only from the Plex Android or iPhone mobile app. You still can’t change the display name from your computer.

Create a Custom Display Name on Plex

The huge number of Plex users who have been lobbying for this feature for years can now rest easy. Plex finally responded to their requests and now any Plex user can set a descriptive display name separate from their username. This makes Plex a bit friendlier and easier to use, which every Plex user should appreciate.

Plex is a great piece of software. Simply put, it lets you stream your media whenever you want, on any device, anywhere in the world. But there is much more to it than that.

Today, we’ll be showing you some of the best Plex tips and tricks that are guaranteed to help supercharge your experience.

1. Consider Enabling DLNA Server

For those not in the know, DNLA functionality allows you to watch content from Plex on other DLNA-enabled TVs and devices in your home, even if the official Plex app itself is not installed.

Unfortunately, the feature is not turned on by default. Plex’s decision to disable this is security-based.

Remember, if you enable DNLA, any DNLA device in your home can watch your videos. If you have small children in the house, this option may not be suitable.

To enable DNLA, open the Plex server and go to Settings and Settings and DNLA.

2. Bilingual Movie Library

Did you know that you can link multiple folders to a single Plex library? This has a lot of advantages – perhaps the most obvious of which is the bilingual movie library.

For example, let’s say you are fluent in both English and Spanish. There is a high chance that you will have some movies with English audio, some with dual audio, and some for Spanish only.

Then create two libraries, one for English and one for Spanish.

The English library can pull in content from folders one and two with the language set to English, while the Spanish library can pull in from folders two and three with the language set to Spanish.

If you have family and friends around who only speak one of the two languages, they can browse the respective library and see only the content they will be able to see.

3. Watch Live TV for Free

A growing number of apps offer free live TV. Services like Pluto and Stir stream well-known channels in a variety of genres and have become a staple download for cord-cutters.

But Plex also has tons of free channels that you can stream directly from within the app. Some of the free TV channels on Plex include Reuters, Euronews, IGN, Fubo Sports Network, Edge Sport, KidoodleTV, The Pet Collective, and more.

Plus, if you buy a Plex pass (more on that shortly), you can even add a TV aerial to watch and record over-the-air channels like NBC, PBS, CBS, and FOX You can use Plex.

The availability of live TV means that Plex is capable of being a one-stop-shop for all your TV entertainment needs. You have to do less app hopping and hence, can enjoy a more streamlined viewing experience.

4. Use the Plex File-Naming Scheme

OK, hands up, how many of you have movie and music libraries that have no rhyme or reason to their naming structure?

This is already a bad idea from an organizational perspective, but Plex exacerbates the problem.

Why? Because Plex uses scanners and metadata agents to automatically pull episode descriptions, cover art, and other related details into your library. It gives you an enriched experience and makes in-app navigation very easy.

We wrote about the best way to name your media files for Plex if you want more details.