If Jellyfin is your media server software of choice, you’ve no doubt looked over the fence at Plex and been jealous of a feature or two. Jellyfin has a lot going for it, but it doesn’t do everything right. Not right out of the gate, at least.
Thankfully, that’s where plugins come in, and they can add features that you might be missing from a recent migration from Plex, or you never even knew that you wanted in the first place. Here, we’re going to take a look at just five plugins that can change the way you use Jellyfin for the better.
Intro Skipper
Never watch the same intro twice
Watching blockbuster TV shows is great fun, but watching the same 90-second intro every 30 minutes definitely isn’t. Plex and streaming services like Netflix have a button that lets you skip the intro. But Jellyfin doesn’t. Not without the Intro Skipper plugin.
Intro Skipper is a clever plugin that analyzes the audio of TV show episodes to detect when the intro begins and when it ends. Using that data, it can provide a quick and easy way to skip those intros. How well Intro Skipper performs can depend on the content that you’re watching, but it’s a huge improvement over trying to manually scrub through the same intro time and time again.
OpenSubtitles
Never wonder what was just said again
Subtitles are a great way for everyone to watch movies and TV shows, and it’s far beyond an accessibility feature. Movies in particular can be difficult to hear, especially when people are talking during loud scenes. Subtitles can be a game-changer, but sometimes they are missing from the content you watch via Jellyfin.
OpenSubtitles provides user-contributed subtitle data for all kinds of content, and an official Jellyfin plugin matches that data to the content you want to watch. It supports multiple languages, so you can select the right one for your needs.
AnimeMultiSource
The solution to missing metadata
Jellyfin supports TV shows and movies, but while anime might seem like it fits in either, it can actually be its own beast. With varied show and episode naming schemes, finding the right metadata isn’t always easy. And that can lead to anime content being misnamed and incorrectly formatted.
AnimeMultiSource pulls information from anime-specific metadata sources including AniList, AniDB, MyAnimeList, TVDB, and Fanart.tv. That way, you can be sure you’re getting the right artwork, episode names and numbers, and that you’ll be watching your anime shows in the correct order.
Playback Reporting
Get detailed watch stats and more
Jellyfin is a media server that supports multiple users, and people can watch content without affecting watch status or any other stats related to each other. But for server administrators, it can be useful to see information about the content users are watching and when they are doing it. Jellyfin has a first-party plugin that offers exactly that.
Playback Reporting collects and then offers a visualization of user and media activity data on a Jellyfin server. That data can be viewed in all kinds of ways, including graphs that make it easy to get an understanding of individual user activity. You can even get your hands dirty and run custom SQL reports if you’re into that kind of thing as well.
JellyFin Enhanced
Upgraded your interface
Being able to watch content via Jellyfin using nothing more than a web browser is extremely convenient. But using the web interface isn’t as great as it could be, and it’s missing some key features. But you can address that by installing a plugin called Jellyfin Enhanced.
Jellyfin Enhanced adds a raft of features, including new 4K, HDR, and Atmos logos on the posters for TV shows and movies. A release calendar and support for bookmarks are additions that should probably be part of Jellyfin proper, but aren’t — this plugin fixes that.
It also includes a live “who’s watching” view and integrates with a tool that makes it even easier for people to request new content to add to the Jellyfin library. The media playback screen is also improved, with automatic intro and outro skipping, ratings, and a pause screen with information about the content being watched.
Time to upgrade your Jellyfin experience
Easy, free upgrades
It’s been said a couple of times already, but it bears repeating: Jellyfin is a great way to collect, manage, and watch content. But like all software, it doesn’t have all of the features that anyone could want. That’s why the plugin system exists, and it lets people extend the server’s feature set.
The five plugins listed here bring some great, much-needed features to Jellyfin. And best of all, just like Jellyfin itself, they’re absolutely free, and they might just add the features you need to make the switch from Plex, too.