Parental Control Tags don't reflect on Music Albums

[AustinStromness 0]

I'm a new emby user, we're trying to set up a media server where we can better control what media my children have access to. (Maybe a few accidents with Alexa... dun dun dun)

I'm having issues with specifically Music Albums not reflecting the tagging rules. I'm on server version 4.1.9.80
This seems to be a general affliction as I see the same behavior on the google tv app, ios app, fire app, and in the web browser.

I have a 'Kids' Profile set to only allow content when tagged with 'Kids'
My Music library is:
Kids/Artist/Album/<songs>
EverythingElse/Artist/Album/<songs>

I've tagged the Kids directory with 'Kids
I've also handpicked a few single songs from albums from the Everything Else directory so that they can be part of the Kid's library.
The songs appropriately show up in the Music library for Kids in all the screens EXCEPT on the Albums screen.

Parental Controls for Kids Profile

Meta Data on Kid's Library Directory

Single song tagged with Kids in the other directory:


Albums not showing anyting

But songs are present as expected

<suggestions, album artists, artists, composers, genres, tags all appear appropriately if you want me to post screenshots I can but the above seems sufficient>

I thought this was odd behavior. So I then decided to try the reverse approach. To have everything be allowed except the things that are tagged 'Adults'. Then I temporarily put the Adults tag on my everything else folder in the meta data.

I then had the reverse problem where the kids profile could now see ALL albums even if the songs were not available due to tagging.
parental controls on Kids "flipped" to restrict on tag 'Adults'

Metadata tag on Everything Else folder:


Songs appear the same:


But now Albums show every album:

And if the Kids profile selects an album that none of the songs should be available, the album appears to be empty:


regular user it shows as a complete album:


Based on these settings described it just seems Albums are not respecting tag values in parental controls (either through inheriting from a parent file directory) Or being set on the Album, Artist, or Song.

Let me know if there's more information I can provide to you!

Our current work around is to use the only allowed if tagged with Kids. then creating playlists for my kids to explore but having the albums page would make it easier for them to associate the pictures to the songs they've been listening to.

embyserver.txt

[Abobader 3464]

Hello AustinStromness,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Luke 42077]

HI, did you try adding the tag to the album as well?

[AustinStromness 0]

Sure did, adding the tags at any level doesn’t seem to help

[Luke 42077]

What exactly did you do?

[AustinStromness 0]

I tried tagging the album, artist, songs (separately and collectively) in the UI directly, I’ve also tried tagging the artist, album, song in the directory view. They all result in the same behavior described above,

[Luke 42077]

@AustinStromnessare you sure? I just tested tagging an album and it worked just fine.

Quote

I’ve also tried tagging the artist, album, song in the directory view.

There is no such thing as album or artist in the directory view. Folders are just folders, and using this for tagging will result in a situation where the media is visible but not the albums.

I would suggest going to the albums tab in your library and then adding a tag to an album from there. Please see if that helps.

[AustinStromness 0]

It's one of the things I've attempted already:

This album already has the Kids tag on it.

In the Kids profile view (that has the allow only of tags "Kids") It doesn't show here

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what other parental control options have you configured for the user?

[AustinStromness 0]

the only setting is to filter by tag

[Luke 42077]

OK I would try refreshing the metadata on the album and see if that helps.

[AustinStromness 0]

Refreshed the meta data on the album, didn't change any behavior. (Still not showing up under Albums)

[Luke 42077]

Strange. It seems to be working just fine in my testing.

[AustinStromness 0]

Could the way music is organized be the issue?

My Folder structure and setting is currently for perfectly structured; I'll play around a bit to see if different music structures change behavior. I'll change this to the Other or Unstructured to see if that helps? 

Edited November 22, 2025 by AustinStromness
fix a typo

[Luke 42077]

Hi, no, that shouldn't matter.

[markle88 15]

I think i'm having the same issue. I have around 53 music albums tagged for a specific user. I've restricted that user to only content with that tag. On a regular user, i can see all of those albums and their songs. On the restricted user however, only 39 of those albums show up within the "album artist". Interestingly, some of the other albums that are missing from the "album artist" screen do show up in the "Latest Music" screen for the restricted user. But they do not show up under the "album artist". 

[sa2000 674]

On 14/02/2026 at 17:48, markle88 said:

On the restricted user however, only 39 of those albums show up within the "album artist". Interestingly, some of the other albums that are missing from the "album artist" screen do show up in the "Latest Music" screen for the restricted user. But they do not show up under the "album artist". 

I have tried this out giving a user access to only 3 albums for an artist. I did my tests on the beta 4.10.0.3 and I can see an issue with the "Albums" view where they do not show but for the "Album Artists" tab, the artist shows and on clicking the artist I see the the 36 songs from the albums showing. I will refer the issue with the "Albums" tab to the development team but I do not see an issue with the "Album Artists" tab

Maybe the missing albums went into "Various Artists" under "Album Artists" tab? please check that

Would need actual examples and what emby server version in use and an emby server log covering the time when the albums are missing for the user - see How to Report a Problem