Connect your server to your account

Your server runs perfectly well knowing nothing about us. Linking it to an account is what turns on the parts that need something outside your house.

What linking gives you

Linked	Why it needs an account
Artwork, descriptions, and cast	Metadata comes through our service, keyed to your account, so you do not have to sign up for an API key anywhere
Watching from outside the house	Your apps have to find your server from a coffee shop, which means something in the middle knows where it is
Sharing with other people	The people you share with sign in as themselves, and that means accounts
Downloads on phones and tablets	Part of the paid tier, which attaches to your account
Server updates	Your server checks a signed update manifest and offers you one-click updates

What works without it, forever

Everything else. On your own network, the apps find the server, play anything, and never ask anyone to sign in. Profiles, parental controls, live TV, recording, Movie Night, playlists, collections, themes, and every playback feature work on an unlinked server. This is not a crippled mode and it is not going to change.

Linking your server

From the setup wizard, or later from Settings → Account and Remote → Link this server.

1. Click the link button. A new tab opens on multipass.theater.
2. Sign in, or create an account if you do not have one. Creating one means verifying your email address with a six-digit code.
3. You get a confirmation screen that names the server you are about to attach. Read it. This screen is the thing standing between you and being talked into attaching a stranger’s server to your account.
4. Approve, and the tab sends you back to your server, now linked.

Why it is done this way

Your account password is never typed into your server and never rides through the browser back to it. The redirect carries nothing secret. Your server exchanges its own credential directly with us over TLS, using a token that never left the machine. A link in your browser history is worth nothing to anyone who finds it.

It also means your server is quietly polling in the background while you do this. So if you finish the approval on your phone, or close the tab by accident, or your browser refuses to redirect from an HTTPS page back to a plain HTTP address on your LAN, the link still completes. The machine that needs the credential is the one asking for it.

If the button does not work

Two common cases:

• The server cannot reach multipass.theater. Some networks block it. Use the fallback: Settings → Account and Remote has an email and password form that binds directly. It does the same thing.
• You already have three servers. An account covers three servers. The wall appears on the confirmation page, so you find out before your server is left half-attached. Unlink one you are not using from your account page.

After it links

Your server picks everything up without restarting. Remote access starts working, metadata starts flowing, and your first profile becomes the owner profile.

Remote access needs no router configuration. Your server dials out and holds a connection open, so there is no port to forward and nothing to open on your firewall. If a direct connection between your app and your server is possible, that is what gets used; when a network refuses it, traffic falls back to an encrypted relay.

Worth knowing. Linking a server does not itself give you remote streaming. Remote streaming comes from your subscription or your trial. See Your subscription.

The owner profile

When the link completes, the first profile on the server is claimed as yours. It keeps whatever name you gave it. Your watch history and everything else it has stays exactly as it was.

Everyone else in the house continues to use their own profiles with no account at all, on your network. Accounts are only needed for people watching from somewhere else.

Unlinking

Settings → Account and Remote → Unlink server. You will be asked to confirm, because it has real consequences:

• Remote access stops immediately. Everyone in the house can still watch normally.
• People you shared with lose access.
• Metadata for new items stops arriving until you link again or add your own TMDB token.

What it does not do: touch your library, your watch history, your profiles, your collections, or anything else. Re-linking the same account picks all of it back up.

If your server cannot reach us when you unlink (it is offline, or we are), it unlinks locally and tells you it could not tell us. Tidy that up later from your account page.