Stop dreading the Plex-to-Jellyfin switch, this plugin does the heavy lifting

Andy Betts

Thu, June 4, 2026 at 4:15 PM UTC

A terminal with the Plex and Jellyfin logos and a popcorn bucket next to it. — Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek | Buch and Bee/ Shutterstock

Jellyfin has been growing in popularity for a while, as many users look for a free and open-source alternative to Plex. And with the recent Plex price hikes, the reason to switch has just gotten even greater . Yet while you can set up your media library in Jellyfin in no time at all, potential switchers often get discouraged by the thought of losing years of tweaks and customizations. But that doesn't have to be true. One plugin called Plexyfin helps make the move to Jellyfin easier.

Plexyfin removes the biggest barrier to switching

Sync Plex and Jellyfin together

Laptop showing Jellyfin Movies library grid with alphabetical sidebar. — Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

As a long-time Plex user who is in the process of transitioning to Jellyfin, I know how tricky it is to keep both apps installed alongside each other . When I first set up Jellyfin, I simply pointed it at my existing Plex media library. It worked perfectly well, but it revealed just how many tweaks I've made to the library over the years. I've fixed the metadata and added posters and other artwork, and none of it was reflected in Jellyfin.

This is the obstacle that prevents people from switching. Even if Jellyfin makes features that you have to pay for in Plex available for free, the prospect of losing collections, user data, library organization, and other customizations means that it just isn't worth the effort.

This is where Plexyfin comes in. This tiny plugin removes the fear of having to "start over" by syncing all the artwork for your Plex content, such as posters and thumbnails, as well as your collections, to your new Jellyfin server.

It takes a lot of the pain and hassle out of moving. You can either leave the plugin running permanently so that you can continue using both services together, or make a one-time sync and leave Plex behind forever.

Setting up Plexyfin is easier than rebuilding everything manually

How to use the plugin

Plexyfin is pretty easy to use, although there are a couple of less obvious steps in the setup, and if you haven't dabbled with Jellyfin plugins before, it can seem quite daunting. So, here's how to get started.

Go to the Plugins section in the Jellyfin Dashboard, and select Manage Repositories > New Repository. Type "Plexyfin" under Repository Name, and for the URL, paste in:

Now restart Jellyfin and return to the Plugins page. Click the Availabletab, locate Plexyfin, select it, and choose Install. Restart Jellyfin again. Back on the Plugins page, you should see Plexyfin. Select it, followed by Settings. You can now configure the plugin.

Launch Plex and copy the URL from the address bar in the browser. You only need the first part of it, and it'll be something like http://127.0.0.1:32400/. Paste it into Plexyfin in the Plex Server URLbox.

Now for the tricky bit: finding your Plex API token. Return to Plex and select any item in your library. Click the three-dot menu button and go to Get Info > View XML.

In the browser's address bar, click and scroll to the very end of the URL, where it'll say X-Plex-Token=. Copy the bit after that and paste it into the Plex API Token box in Plexyfin. Click Test Connectionto check that it works. If it doesn't, make sure you've copied the information correctly.

You can now configure the plugin. Choose the libraries you want to include, whether you want to sync your collections as well, and set up a scheduled sync if you need it. Click Save Settingswhen you're done. You can use the Dry Runoption to check what will change, although the Show Detailed Reportbutton has never worked for me.

When you're ready, click Sync Now. The first sync might take a little while. When it's done, restart one more time and take a look at the changes.

You might need to tidy things up a touch in a few places. I've noticed there can be metadata mismatches for obscure files. But for the most part, your two libraries should look very similar.

Plexyfin gets you most of the way there, but you can go further

One more app can sync the rest of your data

Two other pieces of data that you might want to bring over are your watch history and playback progress. It's harder and not something you can do via a simple plugin. Instead, you need a separate tool for the job.

There are two that can handle the task. I've used JellyPlex-Watched , which I installed on my Mac using Docker, and there's also one called WatchState . They're both much more hands-on and technical to use, and you'll need a grounding in Docker before you can even get started.

If you plan to continue using both Plex and Jellyfin alongside each other for the long term, then this is worth looking into, as it ensures the two apps will remain in sync regardless of which you watch on (syncing in this case goes both ways).

If preserving watch history is important to you, these tools can complete the migration process by keeping watched status and playback progress synchronized between platforms.

Either way, getting your libraries in sync is the biggest hurdle in the switching process, and Plexyfin makes it easy. It takes care of the hardest part of the process, bringing across the years of library customizations without forcing you to start over. Whether you're planning a permanent switch or just testing, it removes a lot of the friction that makes moving from one platform to another so daunting.

Check out Yahoo's latest streaming advice, based on hands-on testing.

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