Option to manually hide individual movie, show, or episode per user

[guynamedbilly 18]

It'd be nice if there was an option to hide individual library items depending on the user.

Use case would be two people using the same library and one of them does not like violent movies and images.  They could hide those from appearing when they browse the library.

I guess it would also need a menu in the server management to manage hidden items so you could restore them later if needed.

[GrimReaper 4739]

That is already achievable by Tag-based access control, "Block items with these tags" mode. 

Settings>Users tab, edit any user, Parental Control tab. 

[guynamedbilly 18]

That's ok for me as the admin.  Not so useful for my technical illiterate sister.  A simple hide button would be much easier.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Or even via custom parental rating.

But either method will require individual user accounts.  Also if the user is doing this it would require them to have manage server rights as they would be editing metadata.  Otherwise it would fall on the admin to do all of this for the user.

[guynamedbilly 18]

8 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

But either method will require individual user accounts.  Also if the user is doing this it would require them to have manage server rights as they would be editing metadata.  Otherwise it would fall on the admin to do all of this for the user.

I don't understand this part.  With the way libraries are organized now via user accounts, there would appear to be some obfuscated filtering happening.  Why couldn't this be filtered behind the scenes also and not require editing metadata? It would be data applied to the user profile.

[GrimReaper 4739]

I could see this being feasible similar as Favorites are, with hidden item being "copied" in the 'Hidden items' tab and with "isHidden=Yes" property resulting in that item simply NOT being displayed in other library views. Downside is that tab scroller is already pretty filled, with even some more pertinent items requiring spot there, so don't know how realistic it would be to expect Hidden items tab to find place there. 

Edited May 24, 2022 by GrimReaper

[Happy2Play 9780]

30 minutes ago, guynamedbilly said:

I don't understand this part.  With the way libraries are organized now via user accounts, there would appear to be some obfuscated filtering happening.  Why couldn't this be filtered behind the scenes also and not require editing metadata? It would be data applied to the user profile.

Well new database column and api updates would need to be added to accommodate an option like this if existing methods are not used.

10 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

I could see this being feasible similar as Favorites are, with hidden item being "copied" in the 'Hidden items' tab and with "isHidden=Yes" property resulting in that item simply NOT being displayed in other library views. Downside is that tab scroller is already pretty filled, with even some more pertinent items requiring spot there, so don't know how realistic it would be to expect Hidden items tab to find place there. 

But yes I would assume a option like this would only exist in the context menu to hide a item.  Only way I see this working would be a filter that could be disabled to show all.

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

I read through this thread and I must admit that the idea of restricting a user (or users) from certain movies/TV shows/music files or even home videos while allowing access to others without mucking with the ratings directly is something I explored in the past. The best solution that anyone came up with was tags but tagging a lot of movies is a tedious propitiation at best. The final solution that was mostly agreed would be best is using collections and tagging collections and using the tags to grant/deny access to certain groups of media.

This seemed ideal and not too hard to implement BUT Emby, at least at that time, did not support/respect tags on collections.

I do not know if Emby plans to support (or already has support for) tags on collections or any such group tagging scenario in the future but my need for it has diminished quite a bit. I still think that the ability to filter collections by tags is a good idea but there are potentially serious issues like:
What happens if a collection is tagged to not display for a particular user and that user uses a view that does not display collections?

There are a LOT of other issues but I still believe that tags+collections+user restrictions is the way that this problem can be solved.

[pwhodges 2012]

Another approach is to divide the library into multiple folders - the users can then be given access to some folders and not others.

Paul

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

4 hours ago, pwhodges said:

Another approach is to divide the library into multiple folders - the users can then be given access to some folders and not others.

Paul

That would work if there was no overlap. The following scenario is not easily covered by simple library restrictions:
I have movies A, B, C, D, E,F
I have users 1, 2, 3
I want to give 1 access to A,B,C and deny access to D,E,F
While 2 gets B,C,D and denied A,E,F
And 3 Gets C,D,E with A,B,F denied.

For that using libraries either requires a lot of library overlap which is not well supported by Emby and in some cases the number of libraries would actually exceed the number of movies involved.
Collections are designed so that a movie can appear in multiple collections so, if access to each collection could be tag controlled,, the setup for the allowing/denying access becomes quite simple and changing access is as simple as adding/removing movies from a given collection. The ability to nest collections would also help dramatically.

At least the collection idea seems pretty simple to me but I also see that it could get complex, possibly too complex, very quickly and what seems "easy" or "straight forward" or even "trivial" to me could easily become closer to something like mathematician's "three body problem" that looks on first blush almost trivial but turns out to be extremely difficult or impossible to to solve.

Of course, a lot of times, Emby has done the impossible and the "three body problem" was recently mostly solved using the "Drunkard's walk" tool from "map theory." Maybe Emby needs to use a more practical approach by using liberal amounts of a liquid analgesic from Kentucky.  

[guynamedbilly 18]

The idea was based on ease of use.  I can assure you that if someone wants to hide a particular movie and it requires me as the admin to configure multiple libraries and collections et al, then I'll just say tough lol.

In the meantime I guess I'll see if the tag solution would work.

Edited May 25, 2022 by guynamedbilly

[Icedkoughiiee 0]

I do not get the option for parental controls. Where can I find it?

 

Edit: Nevermind

Edited February 17, 2023 by Icedkoughiiee

[TZTZoro 26]

@GrimReaperi feel like this thread/use case is more for filtering a specific genre and server admin directed then user directed

so could it maybe become more like a client/user button to change there taste profile and what they can see and make it a blocklist which can be accesed through the user profile like trakt settings now?
here is my original post with more context:
https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/131581-dislikehideblock-button-for-items-movies-tv-shows-music-artists/

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

As I understood it, it's practically same/functionally equivalent, not strictly directed towards admins and/or non-admins, various ideas are thrown. In order to keep discussion focused and not to dilute (any/eventual) support, you're welcome to add your own here. 

 

[Damsdu77 4]

Hi,

I support guynamedbilly's initial request: I would also like to be able to hide items I don't want to watch (because I downloaded them for other family members).

A "hide" button, similar to the "favorites" button, would be very useful; each user (not just an admin) could then hide items they don't want to see. For example, movies dealing with a particular theme or featuring a specific actor.

The screenshots below are just mockups showing the expected functionality.

There is plenty of room to insert the icon between "favorite" and "delete" as well as for the "Masked" section at the top of the main screen.

This way they would no longer unnecessarily overload the list of items to view.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this request!

Regards.

Edited November 17, 2025 by Damsdu77

[ebr 16169]

6 hours ago, Damsdu77 said:

I would also like to be able to hide items I don't want to watch (because I downloaded them for other family members).

You can structure your media so that you won't see those (Folder Based Access Control) but that specific request is covered here:

 

[Damsdu77 4]

20 minutes ago, ebr said:

You can structure your media so that you won't see those (Folder Based Access Control) but that specific request is covered here:

Thanks for your reply, but it doesn't solve the problem: your suggestion only allows me to hide the videos I don't want to see, not other family members.

[ebr 16169]

18 minutes ago, Damsdu77 said:

your suggestion only allows me to hide the videos I don't want to see, not other family members

The folder based access control will allow you to tailor what each person sees. I use it myself so I don't see my daughter's shows even though they are in the same library.  You can also use tags and then the FR I pointed to is exactly what you were asking for - something directly in the UI to do this.

[Damsdu77 4]

Thanks for your reply ebr, but I think we're misunderstanding each other. Probably because I'm not expressing myself clearly (English isn't my native language, I'm using a translator). Or because you're focused on your own idea and not really trying to understand our needs (not just mine). I want to clarify that this isn't an attack on you, it's just my perception of the situation.

As a developer myself, I think it's perfectly doable, but I understand that you prefer to focus your energy on needs that concern the majority of users. Therefore, I will not insist, but I still wanted to clarify my point of view!  Let me try to rephrase:

Like everyone else (I suppose) I put all the movies in a movies folder, the series in a series folder, the shows in a shows folder, etc. Each user has access to these folders. I'm not going to create a folder for each user, otherwise we'd be overwhelmed, especially since several users need to access the same content. So, folder-based access control isn't suitable for this situation.

Regarding adding tags, unless I've missed something, it's only accessible to users who have the right to modify the metadata on the media (i.e., administer the server), right? So, regular users can't add a tag "hidden" to a movie to make it disappear from their list. And besides, unless I'm mistaken, tags are applied to a media item, not to a media/user pair, right? What we want is for media to be displayed to all users by default, but for users to be able to simply choose to hide a media item from their list, without hiding it from others. Based on a principle comparable to favorites, therefore. So, the suggestion to use tags doesn't meet the need either, sorry.

Best regards.

[ebr 16169]

I think I'm completely understanding you...  Folder based access control can definitely work but I understand if you don't want to go to that trouble and, in that case, the FR I pointed to appears to be just what you are asking for so you should lend your support to that.

 

[Damsdu77 4]

10 hours ago, ebr said:

I think I'm completely understanding you...  Folder based access control can definitely work but I understand if you don't want to go to that trouble and, in that case, the FR I pointed to appears to be just what you are asking for so you should lend your support to that.

I definitely don't share your point of view, but it's okay. Never mind.

[ebr 16169]

Then can you please explain how what you are asking for (the ability to hide and individual item by a user) is different from the feature request to have a "Not interested" option so I can understand?

[Damsdu77 4]

There's no difference! What I want is exactly what @marriedman and @guynammedbilly asked in their respective threads (all three different from @Guest Arg's "Ignore list" request). Besides, if my request had been different from theirs, I would have created a separate thread.