How to Claim Your Plex Server

After you install Plex Media Server and then have it start for the first time, you will get a message that the server is unclaimed. This means that the server is not associated with any Plex account.

When a Plex server is not associated with an account, the following message will appear in the server settings:

This server is unclaimed and not secure
Claiming this server will associate it with your Plex account. This helps your devices find each other and helps keep your media safe.

You will also see this message if you reset your Plex password, and then check the checkbox stating that all devices associated with your Plex account will be signed out. This option will not only sign out of client devices but also any servers associated with your account.

The above message will also be displayed if you remove a server from Plex for your account.

Depending on how your Plex server is configured, there are different methods that can be used to claim your Plex server. The steps associated with each method are detailed below.

Table of contents

Access the local Plex Web App

Claim your Plex server

Claim you Plex server using the API

Access the local Plex Web App

You claim, or reclaim your Plex server through the local version of the Plex Web App. How you access the Web App is dependent on how Plex is configured. This section will list the various ways you can access the local Web App.

On the Plex server

From the Plex server, you can use the following steps:

1. Open your Web browser.
2. Enter http://localhost:32400/web or http://127.0.0.1:32400/web into the address bar.
3. The Plex Web App will load in the Web browser.

On the same network

If you are on the same network as your Plex server, you can do the following:

1. Open your Web browser.
2. Enter http://{plex_server_ip_address}:32400/web into the address bar.
3. The Plex Web App will load in the Web browser.

On a different network

If your Plex server is on a different network, then you will need to set up an SSH tunnel. This will allow you to access your Plex server as if it were local.

Linux or OS X

If your Plex server is running on Linux or a Mac, you can connect to your Plex Web App through an SSH tunnel using the following steps:

1. Open a terminal window.
2. In the terminal window enter: {plex_server_ip_address} - L 8888:localhost:32400.
3. Open your Web browser.
4. Enter http://localhost:32400/web into the address bar.

Windows

If your Plex server is running on Windows, you will need to use an application like Putty to create the SSH tunnel.

You would use the following information to setup Putty:

Claim your Plex server

Once you have connected to the local Plex Web App, you can now claim your server. to claim your Plex server, use the following steps:

1. From the local Plex Web App, click the Settings icon.

   

2. From the menu on the left, click the General option under the Settings section.

   

3. Click the CLAIM SERVER button on the right.

   

4. You will be asked to sign in to complete the process of claiming your server.

After completing the above steps, you should now have claimed your Plex server. At this point, you will have a new Plex Authentication Token generated for the server, which will be used to make requests to plex.tv.

Claim your Plex server using the API

You can claim your server programmatically using the plex.tv API. While the above method is the recommend way of claiming your server, there is the option of using the API.

To use the API to claim your Plex server, use the following steps:

1. Generate a Plex claim token using the following API request:

   https://plex.tv/api/claim/token?X-Plex-Token={plex_token}

2. From your Plex server, submit the claim request:

   http://{plex_server_ip_address}:32400/myplex/claim?token={claim_token}

The Plex Token used in the plex.tv request must be either the administrative token associated with your account or a device token. A token associated with a managed user will return a 401 status code.

Once the requests are made, you will get one of the following response status codes indicating the result: