The upside to the syncing method is that it is fully automated and highly customizable, thanks to flexible syncing rules. While the download method might be great for a one-off download (like grabbing a movie or two to copy to your laptop before you head to the airport), the syncing method is vastly superior for consistent use (like keeping the most recent episodes of your favorite TV show synced to your phone and ready for viewing on the commuter train).

The other method, available only to Plex Pass premium subscribers, is the sync method. if you download a movie to your iPhone using the manual download method, the movie won’t load in the Plex app but it will load in any media player on your iPhone capable of playing it). The downside is that it does not automatically sync, you have to manually transcode if you want smaller file sizes, and you have to load the media in a third-party player (e.g. The upside to this technique is that you get a copy of the media to do whatever you want with (like give to a friend) and that copy is in the original quality. Both free and premium users can download content from their Plex Media Servers, but this download functionality is 1) manual action only 2) simply downloads a copy of the media to the computer or mobile device you are using and 3) does not automatically transcode your media (to make it smaller and more mobile-storage friendly). With Plex, there are two ways to approach this issue, dependent on whether you’re a free Plex user or a Plex Premium user. RELATED: How to Enable (and Troubleshoot) Remote Access to Your Plex Media Server Downloading, Syncing, and the Premium Difference

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