Request for Enhanced Parental Controls: Smart Filtering System Needed

[Dr. Technolust 5]

I wanted to share some feedback and a feature request that I think would make a big difference for families using Emby. Right now, the parental control system is helpful, but it has a few limitations that make it tough to create a safe and clean viewing experience for kids—especially when your library includes both family-friendly content and media for older audiences.

As shown in the screenshot I attached, I’ve already set the maximum allowed rating to TV-Y7-FV, enabled blocking for unrated or unrecognized content, and toggled on filtering for all content types like books, games, live TV, and movies. I’ve also added some tag restrictions to focus on family and animation.

But even with all those settings in place, the library view still shows mature content mixed in with kids’ movies. For example, you’ll see Aladdin, A Bug’s Life, and Bambi right next to American History X, American Gangster, and Ben-Hur. These are clearly not appropriate for children, and while playback might be blocked, the fact that they’re still visible in the library is a big problem. Just seeing those titles can lead to questions or curiosity that most parents would rather avoid.

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What Would Help: Smarter Filtering

What I think would really help is a smart filtering system that works with mixed libraries. Ideally, it would:

• Filter out any content that doesn’t match the parental rating or tags, completely hiding it from view

• Work across a single, unified library so we don’t need to split media into separate folders

• Keep the rest of the content organized and easy to browse

• Apply these filters across all Emby clients, including Android TV and the Shield app

Right now, the only workaround is to physically separate content into different libraries or folders, which can be a lot to manage and defeats the purpose of having a well-organized collection. This gets even more frustrating when you’ve already spent time tagging and rating everything properly.

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Why This Matters and How Plex Does It

One of the things Plex does really well is Smart Collections. You can set up dynamic filters based on tags and ratings, and then assign those collections to managed users so kids only see what they’re supposed to. It’s a simple, effective way to protect younger viewers without needing constant adult supervision.

Emby already has a lot of the pieces in place—parental controls, tags, user profiles—it just needs a way to bring them all together so we can create filtered views that actually work the way parents expect them to.

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Final Thoughts

I’ve been using media center apps since the old XBMC days on the original Xbox, so I’ve seen these platforms grow and evolve. Emby has become my favorite, especially on Android TV, and I’d love to go all-in with a lifetime subscription. But this one issue is still holding me back.

Thanks for considering the suggestion. I’d be happy to help test or provide more details if it helps get this feature moving.

Emby Server Version 4.9.0.54 beta

Emby Android App on Nvidia Shield 3.4.67

[GrimReaper 4740]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Technolust said:

American History X, American Gangster, and Ben-Hur.

What PG rating and/or tags do these items show in Edit Metadata dialog? 

[Dr. Technolust 5]

17 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

What PG rating and/or tags do these items show in Edit Metadata dialog? 

Attached are the screen shots of the genre, ratings and tags

Edited May 13, 2025 by Dr. Technolust

[Dr. Technolust 5]

This is how I have my Plex setup and it's been flawless for last few years. I'm not trying to change the app but find a way to replicate what I have with the other app.

 

Edited May 13, 2025 by Dr. Technolust

[GrimReaper 4740]

36 minutes ago, Dr. Technolust said:

Attached are the screen shots of the genre, ratings and tags

Two of your items (AHX and AG) have allowed "family" tag, and since you have "Allow content matching either the rating or tag restriction" those are correctly displayed. 

Third one (Ben Hur) has a "G" parental rating, and since G has a weight lower than TV-Y7-FV, it is also correctly displayed. 

Quote

APPROVED,1
G,1
E,1
EC,1
TV-G,1
TV-Y,2
TV-Y7,3
TV-Y7-FV,4
PG,5
TV-PG,5
PG-13,7
T,7
TV-14,8
R,9
M,9
TV-MA,9
NC-17,10
AO,15
RP,15
UR,15
NR,15
X,15
XXX,100

You should remove "family" tag from AHX and AG and select higher Parental rating/set Custom rating higher than TV-Y7-FV (like PG) for BH. 

Edited May 13, 2025 by GrimReaper

[GrimReaper 4740]

1 hour ago, Dr. Technolust said:

This is how I have my Plex setup and it's been flawless for last few years. I'm not trying to change the app but find a way to replicate what I have with the other app.

 

You have "Match all of the following": Animation+PG there. 

That would be the equivalent of "Allow content matching both the rating and tag restrictions" (instead of either) : TV-Y7-FV+Animation. 

Edited May 13, 2025 by GrimReaper

[ebr 16178]

6 hours ago, Dr. Technolust said:

Filter out any content that doesn’t match the parental rating or tags, completely hiding it from view

Hi.  We already do this.

I believe as Grim has pointed out, this is an issue with your metadata.

[Dr. Technolust 5]

Thanks for the earlier responses and the clarification that the current behavior is expected based on how tag and rating filtering is configured. I now understand that with the “Allow content matching either the rating or tag restrictions” mode, content will be shown as long as one condition is met. That makes sense.

However, in trying to set up a filtered view similar to what I’ve used in Plex (where Smart Collections are built from genres and ratings), it seems like Emby’s system requires very consistent tagging in order to work properly with the “Require both rating and tag restrictions” setting. That’s where I’m running into trouble.

I wanted to ask a few things to see if there’s a more scalable or native approach before I start manually tagging my entire library:

• Is there any way to automatically generate tags based on the genre field that’s already present in Emby metadata? For example, applying an “animation” tag to all titles that already have the “Animation” genre?

• Does Emby support any scripts, plug-ins, or batch tools (official or community) that could help apply or correct tags across the library at scale?

• Is the Emby API suitable for this type of task, and if so, is there any guidance or example calls for setting tags programmatically based on genre or other metadata fields?

• If none of the above are possible through Emby directly, would I need to turn to a third-party manager like TinyMediaManager to export, retag, and reimport everything just to get these controls working reliably?

• Lastly, is there a supported method to reset metadata or remove existing tags in bulk, while preserving watched statuses and user data?

I’m happy to experiment with scripting or API use if that’s the best route. I just want to make sure I’m not overlooking a cleaner path that’s already available within Emby. My goal is to achieve filtered user views without needing to split libraries or micromanage tags manually across thousands of items.

Appreciate all the help and the great work...

[GrimReaper 4740]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Technolust said:

• Does Emby support any scripts, plug-ins, or batch tools (official or community) that could help apply or correct tags across the library at scale? 

• Lastly, is there a supported method to reset metadata or remove existing tags in bulk, while preserving watched statuses and user data?

Bulky, community-made plugin. 

10 minutes ago, Dr. Technolust said:

would I need to turn to a third-party manager like TinyMediaManager to export, retag, and reimport everything just to get these controls working reliably?

TMM is always an option.

[Dr. Technolust 5]

33 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Bulky, community-made plugin. 

TMM is always an option.

I used tinyMediaManager with TMDb as the scraper to clean up American History X, and after clearing all tags, the “family” tag came back after the scrape. So even with manual cleanup, external metadata sources can reintroduce misleading tags that affect filtered views in Emby.

Maybe the parental controls "could" use better protection against these edge cases;  like a way to ignore, strict filters or validate tags based on rating, .

Just wanted to put that on your radar in case this kind of thing becomes more common as users lean on external managers. Bulky does not work for folder view as no items show in the list. So I guess we are back to square one.

[GrimReaper 4740]

14 minutes ago, Dr. Technolust said:

I used tinyMediaManager with TMDb as the scraper to clean up American History X, and after clearing all tags, the “family” tag came back after the scrape. So even with manual cleanup, external metadata sources can reintroduce misleading tags that affect filtered views in Emby.

Maybe the parental controls "could" use better protection against these edge cases;  like a way to ignore, strict filters or validate tags based on rating, .

Tbh, I don't see an issue there - you're an admin of your own server and you've reintroduced unwanted tags back into the system. You can either:

a) Not scrape keywords as tags in TMM

b) Make sure item tags in TMM are as you desire before importing the item into Emby (Filter>Bulk edit>remove desired tags in TMM) 

c) Lock Tags section (or whole item) in Emby's Edit Metadata dialog once item imported, so no changes can be made afterwards

Edit: Or

d) Don't set Tag control using common tags that are (more or less) likely to be found elsewhere, use tags that are more particular and/or personal and/or unique, unlike Animation or Family. 

Edited May 13, 2025 by GrimReaper
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[Dr. Technolust 5]

30 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Tbh, I don't see an issue there - you're an admin of your own server and you've reintroduced unwanted tags back into the system. You can either:

a) Not scrape keywords as tags in TMM

b) Make sure item tags in TMM are as you desire before importing the item into Emby (Filter>Bulk edit>remove desired tags in TMM) 

c) Lock Tags section (or whole item) in Emby's Edit Metadata dialog once item imported, so no changes can be made afterwards

Edit: Or

d) Don't set Tag control using common tags that are (more or less) likely to be found elsewhere, use tags that are more particular and/or personal and/or unique, unlike Animation or Family. 

Thanks Grim, I hear you and yes, I’m the admin of my server and I’m very familiar with how to do steps a, b, c, and d.

But the bigger point is: the average user isn’t. Most people aren’t going to manually clean tag fields in TMM or lock metadata after every import. If someone regularly downloads new content, they’re going to rely on scrapers to automate that workflow. That’s kind of the whole point—to avoid micromanaging metadata every time something is added.

So when something like American History X ends up with a “family” tag from TMDb, it defeats the purpose of having automated filtering and parental controls. It’s not about whether I can fix it it’s about whether the system is resilient by default.

Maybe there’s no bug here, but I think this is still a valid use case to consider especially for users who want safe, hands-off media libraries for shared environments.

[Luke 42078]

Is the average user using TMM though?

[GrimReaper 4740]

23 minutes ago, Dr. Technolust said:

So when something like American History X ends up with a “family” tag from TMDb, it defeats the purpose of having automated filtering and parental controls.

How does it defeat the purpose? Based on what criteria you'd like that item to be blocked if you explicitly allow "family" tag? 

[Dr. Technolust 5]

Just to clarify: I mentioned TMM as an example, but the issue isn’t about that tool specifically. It’s about how any scraper, including TMDb agent, can assign misleading tags like “family” to content that clearly isn’t family-appropriate.

I understand that Emby technically “does what it's told” if a tag is allowed, the item shows up. But that’s kind of the concern. Is there no validation layer to ask? “Does this tag make sense in context of this item’s rating? ” 

So my point is less about config options and more about trusting automation blindly, which seems risky when parental filters are involved. If you’ve got a system that blocks based on tags, but those tags can come from a scraper and override common sense, it’s something worth at least revisiting. But I digress thanks for the responses.

[Luke 42078]

1 minute ago, Dr. Technolust said:

Just to clarify: I mentioned TMM as an example, but the issue isn’t about that tool specifically. It’s about how any scraper, including TMDb agent, can assign misleading tags like “family” to content that clearly isn’t family-appropriate.

I understand that Emby technically “does what it's told” if a tag is allowed, the item shows up. But that’s kind of the concern. Is there no validation layer to ask? “Does this tag make sense in context of this item’s rating? ” 

So my point is less about config options and more about trusting automation blindly, which seems risky when parental filters are involved. If you’ve got a system that blocks based on tags, but those tags can come from a scraper and override common sense, it’s something worth at least revisiting. But I digress thanks for the responses.

My response would be that the average user is probably having Emby fetch metadata, and Emby does not import those Tmdb keywords for exactly the reason that you mentioned. It seems to me like most of them are nonsense.

Isn't that why we have the metadata editor though? What else would you want Emby to do?

[GrimReaper 4740]

I somewhat see what you're getting at, and the only way I could think of working around that would be to introduce third Multiple restriction mode, in addition to "either" or "both" modes: let's call it "dependant" for the purpose of this discussion, where tags would be "slaves" of Parental rating and would work/be applicable only within its confines. 

As it's always easier to give an example:

Movie A - PG: Y7 - Tag: family

Movie B - PG: Y7 - Tag: cartoon

Movie C - PG: R - Tag: family

Max. PG allowed: Y7

Tag mode: Allow, allowed tag: family

"Either" multiple-restrictions mode: Movies A, B and C are shown

"Both" multiple-restrictions mode: only Movie A is shown

Obviously, neither gives desired outcome as it would be desirable to show Movie B as well, but not movie C. 

Currently that is not achievable without either tagging all Y7 items (for "both" mode) or removing "family" tag from all >Y7 items (for "either" mode), both of which require manual intervention. 

Third mode would be needed, a variation of "either" mode, but taking into account item's Parental rating, where it would be checked if item's Parental rating falls under Max. Y7 and if not, tag is disregarded/item not displayed. 

Edit: Or we can call it "common sense" mode.

Edited May 13, 2025 by GrimReaper
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[GrimReaper 4740]

45 minutes ago, Luke said:

It seems to me like most of them are nonsense.

I tend to disagree there, I (and number of my users, more than a few times I've had a feedback about how great a tag feature is) find them very useful as they allow for "term" searching, as opposed to standard title/genre search: think "I'm in the mood for a submarine movie tonight" - search for "submarine" gives me literally 0 titles - and 29 *submarine*-related tags with 40+ movies/TV Shows to choose from. That was just an example, same goes for myriad of other terms, single- or multi-word ("cold war", "political thriller", "near death experience" etc...); I reckon my system has something in the vicinity of 100,000 tags attached to media. 

[ebr 16178]

3 hours ago, Dr. Technolust said:

However, in trying to set up a filtered view similar to what I’ve used in Plex (where Smart Collections are built from genres and ratings), it seems like Emby’s system requires very consistent tagging in order to work properly with the “Require both rating and tag restrictions” setting. That’s where I’m running into trouble.

The real issue is that you are trying to use the parental control system for something for which it really wasn't designed.  It isn't designed to be a "smart view".  We do have plans to implement such a feature, however.