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How to Add Pre-rolls to Plex (2026 Guide)

6 min read · Updated Nov 6, 2026

Quick answer: In Plex Web, open Settings, pick your server, go to Extras, and paste the full path to your video into the Movie pre-roll video field. Then turn on Enable Cinema Trailers in your movie library’s advanced settings, and set Cinema Trailers to at least 1 in the Plex app you watch on. Separate several files with commas to play all of them, or with semicolons to play one at random.

Plex is the easiest of the three big media servers for pre-rolls, because the feature is built in. There’s no plugin to install. There are, though, three separate switches that all have to be on, and most “my pre-roll doesn’t play” posts come down to one of them being off.

What you need

  • A Plex Media Server you own (you need admin access to its settings).
  • A movie library. Plex only plays pre-rolls before movies, not TV episodes.
  • One or more pre-roll video files saved somewhere the server can read. You can grab free ones from our Plex collection.
  • A Plex app that supports Cinema Trailers (more on that below).

Do you need Plex Pass? For the trailers Plex pulls from the internet (new and upcoming movies in theaters or on Blu-ray), yes. For a pre-roll file you supply yourself, Plex Pass doesn’t appear to be required, and plenty of free-account users report it working. Plex’s own docs don’t spell this out clearly, so if it doesn’t work on a free account, that’s one thing to rule out.

Step-by-step setup

1. Put your pre-roll files on the server

Make a folder on the machine running Plex Media Server and drop your videos in it. Something like:

  • Windows: C:\Prerolls\
  • Linux or a NAS: /media/prerolls/
  • macOS: /Users/you/Movies/Prerolls/

The files don’t need to be inside a Plex library. That requirement went away back in Plex Media Server 1.9.5. They just have to be readable by the account Plex runs as.

If you run Plex in Docker, use the path inside the container, not the host path. If you mounted /srv/prerolls on the host to /prerolls in the container, the path Plex needs is /prerolls/yourfile.mp4.

2. Paste the path into the pre-roll field

  1. Open Plex Web (app.plex.tv) and sign in as the server owner.
  2. Click the wrench icon to open Settings.
  3. In the left sidebar, under your server’s section, click Extras.
  4. Find the field labeled Movie pre-roll video. On older server versions it was called Cinema Trailers pre-roll video.
  5. Paste the full path to your file, for example /media/prerolls/netflix-intro.mp4.
  6. Click Save Changes.

It has to be a path to a file. Plex won’t accept a folder and pick something from it.

3. Turn on Cinema Trailers for the movie library

  1. In Plex Web, hover over your movie library in the sidebar, click the three dots, and choose Edit Library.
  2. Open the Advanced tab.
  3. Tick Enable Cinema Trailers.
  4. Save.

Without this, Plex won’t play anything before movies in that library, pre-roll included.

4. Turn on Cinema Trailers in the app you watch on

This is a per-app setting, and it’s the one people miss. In the Plex app on your TV, phone, or computer, open the app’s settings and look for Cinema Trailers (in the current apps it sits under Player Experience). Set it to play at least one trailer.

As server owner you can’t force this on for other people. Each person sharing your server has to switch it on in their own app.

Playing more than one pre-roll

The pre-roll field takes a list of paths. The character you put between them decides what happens:

  • Comma (,): every video in the list plays, one after another, in the order you typed them.
  • Semicolon (;): Plex picks one video from the list at random each time.

So /prerolls/a.mp4;/prerolls/b.mp4;/prerolls/c.mp4 gives you a random intro per movie, which is what most people want.

A few rules that trip people up:

  • Don’t put spaces before or after the separator. A stray space is enough to stop the pre-roll from playing, and Plex won’t show an error.
  • Don’t end the list with a comma or semicolon.
  • You can’t mix the two. There’s no way to say “one random clip from this group, then this fixed clip” in the field itself.

If you want that kind of thing, or a holiday intro that switches itself on in December, look at a pre-roll manager. Preroll Plus rewrites the field before each movie so you can chain random “buckets” together and schedule them by date. NeXroll does scheduling and categories, and also works with Jellyfin and Emby. Both are free, third-party, and not made by Plex.

We’d stick with MP4 using H.264 video and AAC audio. Every Plex client can direct play it, so there’s no transcoding pause before the movie starts. 1080p is plenty. 4K pre-rolls look great on a 4K TV but can force a transcode on weaker devices or remote streams, which means a spinner right when you want the lights to go down.

Keep them short. Most of the clips in our library run 4 to 40 seconds, and anything past a minute starts to feel like an ad. Name your files plainly (netflix-tadum.mp4, not Netflix Intro (FINAL) v2!!.mp4). Spaces in file names generally work, but simple names make the path field easier to get right.

Troubleshooting

The pre-roll never plays

Go back through the three switches: the path in Extras, Enable Cinema Trailers on the library, and Cinema Trailers set to at least 1 in the app. Then check the path character by character. Look for a trailing space, a missing folder, or a Windows path pasted into a Docker setup. A quick test is to paste the same path into a file browser on the server and make sure it opens.

It plays in the browser but not on my Apple TV, iPhone, or Android TV

That’s a known problem with the redesigned Plex apps that rolled out in September and October 2026. With Cinema Trailers set to “Play Pre-roll Only,” those apps play nothing. Setting it to play 1 trailer (or more) makes the pre-roll play again. Plex staff marked the bug report as in progress in October 2026, so this may be fixed by the time you read this. Plex Web and the desktop app weren’t affected.

Some apps skip it completely

Not every Plex app supports Cinema Trailers, and Plex doesn’t publish a current list. Smart TV apps and third-party players are the usual suspects. If one device skips it and another plays it, the server side is fine and the problem is that app.

Comma or semicolon, it always plays the same clip

Make sure you used only one kind of separator and there are no spaces in the list. Restarting Plex Media Server after changing the field also helps sometimes.

My shared users don’t see it

They need Cinema Trailers turned on in their own Plex app. You can’t do it for them from the server.

Can I use a network share?

Yes, as long as the share is mounted on the server and readable by the Plex account. A local folder is the most reliable option, since a share that drops or mounts late means no pre-roll.

Find a pre-roll

Pick something from our Plex pre-rolls, or browse the full library. Everything is free to download as MP4.

Sources we checked

Free Plex prerolls to try

All Plex prerolls