Plex just blocked one of the last free ways to stream your own movies remotely

Published Sep 30, 2026, 3:44 PM EDT Patrick O'Rourke is XDA's News Editor and Entertainment Segment Lead. Previously, he was Pocket-lint's Editor-in-Chief, the Editor-in-Chief of Canadian tech publication MobileSyrup, and earlier in his career, he worked as the technology editor at the Financial Post and Postmedia. He's based in Toronto. Over the past 15 years, he's written thousands of articles. Patrick has also interviewed dozens of tech industry executives and covered GDC, E3, Gamescom, WWDC, Apple keynotes, Samsung Unpacked events and more. Patrick has a BA in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. Sign in to your XDA account Summary Plex now requires a Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass to stream your home server remotely, even with third-party apps like Infuse. Infuse says it's disappointed and that remote access was a popular feature. Workaround: use a full VPN or Tailscale to access your Plex server remotely without paying. Plex seems to have closed a loophole that allowed users to stream their self-hosted movie and TV show library remotely for free. According to a Reddit post from Firecore (via MakeUseOf), the team behind the popular Plex Apple devices app Infuse now requires a Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass subscription to access your home media server when you're away. While this has been the case with the official Plex app for quite a while, until now, third-party video players like Infuse could still stream content for free. To be clear, this change doesn't affect local streaming with third-party apps like Infuse. In the Reddit post, Firecore says that it "received a note from Plex today that, beginning later this week, remote streaming from a Plex server will require a paid Plex license." Below is the full message Firecore says it received from Plex: "I wanted to reach out on behalf of the Plex team to let you know that starting later this week, all Plex users will need a Remote Watch Pass or a Plex Pass to play from a remote personal media service, including those using a third-party app like Infuse." The change affects all third-party Plex apps There are still ways to watch remotely for free, though The Firecore team says it's disappointed by this change, as it knows remote access was a popular Infuse feature. That said, you can still use a full VPN setup or a more streamlined VPN app like Tailscale to access Plex content when you aren't at home, without paying for a pricey subscription. In other Plex-related news, a few months ago the platform raised the price of its popular lifetime Plex Pass from $250 to $750, prompting an uproar from longtime users. The self-hosting platform also recently rolled back its controversial streaming device app redesign on Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, and Fire TV, bringing back the left-side navigation menu.