How to get around the Plex Pass requirement for Plex remote access by using Tailscale

Beginning April 29th, 2025 the pricing for Plex Pass increased at the same time that remote access got paywalled behind it. That means you can no longer stream your own content outside of your home network, like say on your phone or tablet while at work or on vacation, without paying for Plex Pass. You can get around this by using Tailscale to remotely access your Plex server from other devices while still appearing as local traffic, which does not require Plex Pass.

Table of Contents

  1. About Plex and the service changes
  2. About Tailscale
  3. Pre-Requisites
  4. Set up Tailscale on Plex server
  5. Set up Tailscale on a Windows Laptop and/or Android Phone
  6. Configure the Plex server for Plex apps
  7. References

About Plex and the service changes

Plex Media Server is a self-hosted media server that lets you stream your owned (ripped, downloaded, or otherwise acquired) media from other devices on the same network, through a web-based GUI (access via browser) or dedicated app. (Say, on a smart TV or Roku device.) Plex lets you stream videos and music through a slick Netflix-like user interface, and Plex also offers the excellent Plexamp music player app for Android and iOS devices, so you can stream music on the go through a dedicated UI. Plex can also let you view photos, but this feature is nothing to write home about, in my opinion — stream movies and TV shows is Plex’s bread and butter, with built-in fetching of metadata, posters, etc.

Plex Media Server has a built-in feature called Remote Access that can be configured from the web UI. By enabling Remote Access, and forwarding network port 32400 from your router (ideally with some firewall rules for security), you can access Plex from other devices using your account, like a phone or tablet. It also allows you to share your media library externally with other users, allow them to access your server and stream the shared content. (This does not to work behind CGNAT, however, which is why I started using Tailscale for remote access and library sharing in the first place.)

The remote access feature has always been free until the Plex service changes and price increases on April 29, 2025. From this day forward, remote access is now locked behind Plex Pass. If you bought a Plex lifetime pass before that date it was $119, with occasional sales as low as $80, but after the change it now costs a whopping $250 for the lifetime pass. That’s a more than 100% increase on the base price!

The monthly Plex Pass subscription also rose from $4.99 to $6.99 per month, a less egregious price increase. However, keep this in mind — at the old prices, a lifetime pass of $120 was roughly equivalent to two years at $5/month, so it paid for itself after two years. With the new pricing structure, a $250 lifetime pass is roughly equivalent to three years at $7/month. No matter how you slice it, the value proposition is less than before.

So basically if you’re running a Plex server on your home network, a Plex Pass will be required both for accessing your own content from your own devices outside your network (remote access), and also for allowing other users to access shared library content. If you only care about sharing with others, each of those other accounts you’ve shared with can choose to pay for their own Remote Watch Pass subcription at $2.99, which will allow them to access your shared content without you, the owner of the Plex server, having to pay for Plex Pass. (Keep in mind that hardware transcoding has always been locked behind Plex Pass and this has not changed.)

About Tailscale

Tailscale is a mesh VPN service that lets you connect multiple devices across multiple networks seamlessly and securely. It uses NAT traversal to punch through firewalls and obviate the need for port forwarding, and communication between devices occurs through encrypted WireGuard tunnels, so really it’s even more secure than regular Plex remote access where you’re exposing a port to the internet. The cool part is that by using Tailscale, we can skip the Plex Pass requirement for remotely accessing our own content, since the Plex server and other devices will act as if they are on the same network. Technically, they will be on the same network since all machines running Tailscale are placed in the same Tailnet. So this won’t even run afoul of the Plex terms of service.

I previously wrote about how to expose Plex through CGNAT with a free Oracle VM, which allows access by users you’ve shared your library with, without them having to run Tailscale or even them needing a Tailscale account. (Although that method is preferable so that connections can be direct between devices, instead of having to be relayed through our VM.)

I am unsure if this method still works without Plex Pass. Assuming the Plex Pass changes means the subscription is only required to access Plex from a different subnet than the server is on, and there’s no restrictions on access by other accounts, then it should still work.

Either way, the method described in this post will bypass the Plex Pass requirement to remotely access your own content with your own account.

Pre-Requisites

This guide assumes you have a Plex server already set up and that it’s running on Linux. I won’t go into how to install Plex here, see this article for detailed instructions on running Plex as a Docker container in Linux.

Note that I use plain Linux to run Plex in a Docker container, there may be additional configuration needed to run Plex on Proxmox, TrueNAS, Synology, etc. I can’t help you with that, since I don’t run Plex on any of those and have no interest in doing so.

This post will instruct you on how to run Tailscale on the same machine running Plex, but alternately you can run Tailscale on a separate machine in your network and configure it as subnet router. I won’t cover that here, see this section of my comprehensive Tailscale guide or check out the Tailscale documentation for details.

I’ll provide instructions to install and configure Tailscale on the Plex server and on other devices, specifically a Windows laptop and Android tablet. (It should work similar on iOS, the apps look identical at least, but I don’t have an iOS device to confirm this myself.)

Set up Tailscale on Plex server

Go to the Tailscale website and create an account. This will create your Tailnet (private mesh network for all your Tailscale-connected devices) with your newly created account as the Owner and which you’ll manage through the web-based admin console.

Once you’ve got the account created, use the following command on the Plex server terminal to install Tailscale:

curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh

Once it’s finished installing, use the command sudo tailscale up and go to the provided URL and login to authenticate the node with your Tailscale account. You should then see the server listed under Machines in the Tailscale admin console.

This next part is optional, but I think it’s a good idea, which is to rename your Tailnet. On the admin console go to the DNS tab. Notice that the Tailnet name is something auto-generated like tailfe8c.ts.net. You can keep this if you want, but you may want to change it to a “fun name” that is more human-readable and easier to remember. You can’t just type one in, instead you choose from ones generated by Tailscale.

Choosing a tailnet fun name.

Click the Rename tailnet… button and follow the prompts. You can keep reloading until you find a fun name you like. For future examples, we’ll assume your tailnet name is royal-marmot.ts.net.

This next part is also optional, but may be required for Plex to consider Tailscale connections to be “secured” through TLS. (Not sure if this is the case, as I haven’t used it without it enabled.) Scroll down to the end of the page and click the Enable HTTPS button.

Enabling HTTPS in Tailscale.

Now we can provision TLS certificates for machines in your tailnet. We’ll assume the Plex server’s machine name is plex and the Tailscale domain is plex.royal-marmot.ts.net

In the terminal on the Plex server use this command to generate the TLS certificate:

sudo tailscale cert <machine-name>.royal-marmot.ts.net

Set up Tailscale on a Windows Laptop and/or Android Phone

Now let’s install Tailscale other devices you want to access Plex from, I’ll walk you through installing and setting it up on Windows and Android, but for other clients go to the Tailscale admin console, click on the Add device button, and choose your client. Alternately just go to this link to see all the clients.

For Windows, go this link, click the download button and follow the instructions on that page to set it up. You’ll be taken to login with Tailscale and authenticate the device, then you’re ready to go. When the Tailscale app is running and connected (click the icon in your system tray for options), you’ll be connected to your tailnet.

For Android, either go to this link this link and use the QR code, or just go to the Google Play Store and download the app. (Make sure it’s the official Tailscale app!) The app will be installed as a VPN, and when you login you’ll be taken to Tailscale to authenticate the device. You’ll use the Tailscale app to connect to your tailnet.

Now you should be able to access Plex on your browser at http://plex.royal-marmot.ts.net:32400 when connected to Tailscale. However, watching Plex exclusively on the web UI is not a great experience, especially on phone and tablets. Let’s do some additional configuration to be able to use Plex apps through Tailscale.

Configure the Plex server for Plex apps

The following will be necessary if you want to use Plex apps on phones, smart TVs, and other devices.

  1. Go to the Plex web UI of your server on a browser, and click on the the wrench icon at the top-right to go into Settings.

  2. On the sidebar, scroll down to Settings section and click on Network.

  3. Next to Secure connections, choose Preferred from the downdown menu.

Secure connections setting in Plex.

  1. Make sure to leave disabled the checkbox for Enable Relay.

Relay and Custom access URL settings in Plex.

  1. This is the really important part. Under Custom server access URLs type in https://plex.royal-marmot.ts.net:32400 as well as your Plex’s server’s Tailscale IP, i.e. http://100.200.300.400:32400. (Make sure to use http for this one.) You can get the machine’s Tailscale IP from the admin console.

  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Save changes button.

Now your Plex apps should be able to connect through Tailscale!

References