Now Playing is session information, not completed watch history. It sits at the top of the Dashboard and shows what is playing right now on your connected servers.

Works on

App Works Notes
Plex Yes Sessions arrive through Plex’s notification connection and a session check. A user added to a Plex server that another Plekt user owns appears through the owner’s connected account.
Emby Yes, after setup Needs the Plekt plugin or a webhook. See Emby.
Jellyfin Yes, after setup Needs the Plekt plugin or a webhook. See Jellyfin.
Trakt, Simkl Not applicable They record history, not live playback.

Why it differs. Each media server reports playback in its own way. Plex’s own webhooks only fire when playback changes state and send no “still playing” signal, so Plekt also checks Plex’s sessions on a schedule. Emby and Jellyfin do not tell an outside app about playback until a plugin or webhook is set up. Trackers never host the player, so they have no sessions to show.

Plekt Now Playing panel showing live sessions with their source and playback position
Each live session identifies its source and current position; with nothing playing, the panel is headed Up Next and features part watched and Up Next items.

What a session shows

A session card shows the title, the episode title with its season and episode, the source service, the current position and duration, and a progress bar. Select the title to open its media details.

How fresh it is

  • Playback checks run every 10 seconds while something is playing and every 5 minutes while idle.
  • Opening the Dashboard or returning to a background tab requests a fresh snapshot at once.
  • A plugin, webhook, or Plex notification reports a new session sooner than the idle check.
  • Active Session TTL in Settings → Sync → Sync tuning controls when an inactive session is treated as stale.

Each user sees their own playback. A provider failure is kept separate from a genuinely empty result, so a temporary connection problem does not claim that playback stopped. Disappearing from Now Playing does not, by itself, create a completed watch.

Panel options

The cog beside the panel heading opens its options. Every change saves at once and applies to the whole server.

Plekt Now Playing panel with its options open, showing two allow checkboxes and an item count
The cog beside the panel heading sets which items can fill Now Playing and how many it holds.
  • Allow part watched items here and Allow Up Next items here are both on by default. Part watched items fill the free slots first, then the other Up Next items.
  • The item count (1 to 3) sets how many cards the panel holds, live sessions included.

While an episode or movie plays, its own Up Next card is hidden and never featured in the panel, so the title shows once, as its live session.

If a session never appears, follow Now Playing is empty or stale.