In this post we will go through the installation and configuration of Tautulli to integrate with Plex Media Server.

You may ask what is Tautulli and why do I need it?  Tautulli connects to your Plex server’s database and gives you access to lots of very useful and interesting information.  Want to know what your kids have been watching and how many times or monitor the viewing habits of Plex accounts you’ve shared libraries with? Want to setup alerts to tell you when Sonarr downloaded content has just been scanned into your TV Show library?  All this and more is possible in Tautulli

Installation

You will need to first download Python 2.7 (latest release 2.7.16) from here. Then download Tautulli from here. You will also need to download NSSM from here.

Run the python-2.7.16.amd64.msi file and select Install for all users, then click Next

Select your install directory and then click Next

Accept all the defaults and click Next

Wait for the installer to complete, then click Finish

Extract the Tautulli-master.zip files to a directory

Extract the NSSM files to a directory

Configure the service account

Open an administrative command prompt and change directory to your nssm executable directory as below.  Then type:

nssm install Tautulli

Enter the nssm settings as below:

Path: C:\Python27\pythonw.exe
Startup directory: C:\Python27\
Arguments: C:\Tautulli\Tautulli.py

Click the Log On tab and click This account.  Enter credentials for your server admin account

Click Install Service and you should see the below

Go into Windows services and start the Tautulli service

Configuring the setup wizard

Open Chrome and go to http://127.0.0.1:8181/welcome  You should see the welcome page and setup wizard, click Next

Click Sign in with Plex

Sign in with your Plex account

You should get an Authentication Successful message, click Next

Select your Plex Media Server from the drop down list and click verify, wait for the server found message and click Next

Leave the Activity Logging setting as the default and click Next

Click Next

Click Finish

The authentication token is registered and then you are taken into Tautulli

If you are able make a donation to the folks at Tautulli for all the fine work that they do and give to us for free!  Then click close

What can I see in Tautulli?

The Tautulli homepage and dashboard gives you some vital watched stats about your Plex media:

Click Libraries, then click on one of your Plex Media Server libraries to see all the related statistics

Below you can see movies played for each user, click History

Here you can see the entire history of activity for a particular library

Click on Users from the top right.  Here you can get a break-down of all user activity from users that are accessing your Plex media server.  Click on a particular user to go into more detail about what that user has been doing

If you just want a quick overview of everything that has happened on your Plex Media Server click History

Click on Graphs, you can see some interesting trends and behaviors regarding your users viewing habits

Click on Synced items, here you can see all the media that has been synced to mobile devices for offline use

General Settings

Click Settings and the click General.  Configure your preferences for time, date and whether to enable updates or not.  I left these settings as the default

Homepage Settings

Click Homepage, choose your preferences for how you want the layout of the homepage to appear.  I used the default settings

Web Interface Settings

Click Web Interface, here you can change the HTTP port if needed.  The only thing I changed was to add an HTTP Username and HTTP Password to force a login to the Tautulli interface (You will need to restart the Tautulli service for this)

Plex Media Server Settings

Click Plex Media Server, here you can force a secure connection to your Plex Media Server by checking Use SSL

Notifications & Newsletter Settings

Click Notifications & Newsletters.  I select both Group Notification options, this just saves me from getting lots of alerts about a similar media item.  For instance if I add Season 2 of a show I don’t want to be told about each episode individually – just that Season 2 is available

Notification Agent Settings

Click Notification Agents, then click Add a new notification agent

Choose Email

Enter a From Name (who your email alerts will appear from).  Then enter a from email address and who you are sending the emails to under To and CC

Scroll down and enter your SMTP server details for sending emails.  You should be able to find this information quite easily especially if you are using Outlook, Gmail etc

Select Triggers, here you choose the reason why you are sending out an email alert.  I select Recently Added as I want to be emailed when Sonarr or Radarr have added new items into the Plex libraries

Select Conditions.  Here you can choose which libraries you want to receive the email alerts for.  As an example  I sometimes create additional libraries that only I can see which IT training videos in.  I do not want all my Plex users to be informed about any additions of my training videos.  I therefore add conditions for only the libraries below

Click Text, here you can choose what you want the email to say.

The only parameter I use in the email is the {title}.  If you click under Notification Text as shown below it will give you all the available parameters that can be used

If you click Preview Text you can see how your email will look

Tautulli Mobile App

Tautulli also has an iPhone app, I bought the Pro version for £2.99 from the app store and it was well worth it.  To set this up in Tautulli click Tautulli Remote Android App (yes even if you are setting up an iPhone).

Click Register a new device

Download the Tautulli app on your iPhone from the App Store.  Once downloaded press the Scan QR code option.  Your phone’s camera should activate, now hold this over the QR code on your Tautulli instance

Scan the QR code with your iPhone

This should now connect the app to your server and you can start using all the Tautulli features

Sending Newsletters with Tautulli

Tautulli has a fantastic HTML newletter function that can send you stunning looking newsletters with updates about your content as below

If you want the poster images in the newsletter to display you will need to setup and Imgur account.  Once you have done that go here and give the application a name, click Auth 2 authorization without a callback URL, type an email address and description.  Then do the capture and you should be given a client ID

Open Tautulli and click Notifications & Newsletters.

Scroll down to 3rd Party APIs and choose Imgur.  Select the Imgur Client ID field and put in the ID you just noted from Imgur

Click Newsletter Agents, Add a newsletter agent and then click Recently Added

This should then take you to the below settings.  Click Enable the Newsletter, set a schedule and then select which libraries you want to be updated about

Click the Saving & Sending tab, select the Email Notification Agent that will be used to send your newsletter

Make any amendments you want to the Newsletter text