Requesting access to media

[CptMavryk]

Hey all.

I'm new to Seerr. After many years of maintaining my Plex server manually, I've finally branched out into the ARR ecosphere. Now, for the first time, I am tackling external users.

I thought my idea was simple. Instead of giving my family access to my plex and all of it's libraries, I could use Plex Labels to hide content that they don't want to see, and they could use Seerr to request the movies and shows to build up their own libraries by unhiding what's already available in plex. This obviously works perfectly for movies/shows I don't already have on Plex, but anything that's already there, Seerr is not helpful.

From what I can tell, the common wisdom is either open slather, or to contain requested items into individual user libraries. Maybe I am misunderstanding, but this seems inefficient. If I already have Movie 1 in a library, I don't want to have it show in a different library just so another user can access it.

For example. User 2 requests a new show. It will download to their personal request library. But if User 3 also wants that show, does it then copy the entire file into a new folder and duplicates the data so both users can see it in their individual libraries?

I get that Seerr cannot update labels in Plex, and that's fine if it's a limitation imposed by Plex. But I would like a way for Seerr to see what I have in Plex and instead of providing the "open in plex" option, I want it to still be the "request" button. However, instead of it sending the request to radarr or sonarr, I want to be able to use a custom script to go edit the label so it then shows up for the user in plex.

To me, this makes the most logical sense. Have each user have access to all the libraries, and they can either request to unhide pre-existing content or send the request to sonarr/radarr. But please, correct me if I am not thinking about this the right way.

[Advait251206]

Interesting use case. From what I understand, you're looking for "request access" rather than "request download" when content already exists in Plex.

I can see why the current behavior doesn't fit well here. If a title is already available, Seerr assumes the user's goal has been satisfied and switches to the "Open in Plex" flow. In your setup, however, availability and visibility are two different things because Plex labels are being used to control access.

A feature that allowed existing media to be requested (potentially triggering a webhook, custom script, or approval workflow) could bridge that gap nicely. For example:

• Media exists in Plex but is hidden from the user.
• User clicks Request Access instead of Open in Plex.
• Seerr creates a request or approval event.
• A webhook/custom script updates Plex labels, collections, or whatever access-control mechanism is being used.

This would also avoid maintaining duplicate libraries or duplicate media files just to control visibility.

As for the question about separate user libraries, most ARR/Plex setups don't duplicate the actual media file for each user. The same file is typically shared, although some people use separate libraries, permissions, or Plex Home/managed users to control visibility. Still, that doesn't fully address the "I already have it, just let this user access it" workflow you're describing.

I don't know how common this use case is, but it seems like a reasonable feature request for people using Plex labels or other metadata-based access controls rather than separate content libraries.