Plex is an all-in-one solution for hosting your own movie and TV library, backing up photos and videos, listening to music, and much more. However, some features will start to move out of the main Plex app to streamline development.
Plex announced plans to “adapt to continue delivering the best service possible,” which mostly consists of splitting up the main Plex application into several dedicated companion apps. The main app currently handles movies, TV shows, music, photo upload and management, and many other functions. There’s already a separate music player app, Plexamp, and now Plex is introducing a dedicated photos app.
Plex Photos is now available as an open beta test, with similar functionality as the photos features already in the current Plex app. You can use it to synchronize your photos and videos to a Plex server, and also browse all synchronized media in a gallery view. It’s a lot like Google Photos or the Photos app on Apple devices, except all the data is stored on your own server.
Plex said in a blog post, “Companion apps like Plexamp and Plex Photos allow us to deliver specialized features and improvements that are tailored to the unique needs of music and photo enthusiasts. For example, Plexamp’s mixes, visualizers, and offline listening capabilities are all designed to enhance the music listening experience. Similarly, Plex Photos will include features like improved search, casting to TVs, and seamless integration with your existing Plex Media Server library.”
The current plan is for Plex Photos to exit beta testing sometime in the fourth quarter of 2024, with more features and changes based on user feedback. After that, Plex will start phasing out support for music playback and photos management in the main Plex app. Next year, Plex plans to bring the photos app to more platforms, and fully remove photos and music from the main Plex app.
You can try out the new Plex Photos app on Android or iOS. Plexamp is already available on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux, and there’s a “headless” version for remote playback on Raspberry Pi devices.
Source: Plex
