Channel Surf turns your Plex movies and shows into channels you can flip through on Apple TV. No pausing. No skipping. No scrolling for an hour. Just see what’s on.
Shown with the app’s sample channels. Big Buck Bunny © Blender Foundation, CC BY 3.0. Film credits
A library you have to choose from turns every evening into homework. Channels fix that. Something’s already on, halfway through, and you stay for the rest of it. It’s how you end up rewatching a movie you forgot you loved.
What’s on now and what’s coming up, across every channel. Made for the Siri Remote, and built to feel like it came with your Apple TV.
Move through the guide without changing what’s playing. Details for whatever you highlight appear beside the picture.
Every swipe lands on the next channel. Press select to tune in, or go full screen and flip with up and down.
You join every show where it is right now. There’s no scrubbing, and when something ends, the next one starts on schedule.
Channel Surf reads your library and builds the lineup for you, numbered in blocks like a satellite guide. Sign in and it’s done.
Comedy, drama, whole decades and all-day marathons of your favorite shows, with no show airing twice in a row.
Every genre and every decade gets its own movie-only channel, playing around the clock.
Pick Basic for a handful of big genres, or Everything for a channel for anything with enough to fill it. Turn off any you don’t need.
Schedules are shuffled across your whole library, so you keep finding things you forgot you had.
A show never airs twice in a row, and you choose how long before it can come back around.
Recent additions stay off the channels for a while, so you can watch them on purpose. You set how long.
Land on any episode, or have each show pick up where it left off. Reshuffle every channel whenever you like.
Channel Surf has no account, no analytics and no ads, and it collects nothing. It talks to Plex to sign you in, to your own server to play video, and to the App Store for your purchase. Read the privacy policy.
Try every channel free for 3 days.
One purchase, and it’s yours. No subscription, and no features held back.
An Apple TV running tvOS 26 or later, and a Plex Media Server with your movies and shows on it. A free Plex account is enough to sign in.
Yes. Choose Try Sample Channels on the sign-in screen to surf a small lineup of classic and open-licensed films.
No, on purpose. It’s live TV: if you don’t like what’s on, change the channel.
It doesn’t change or delete your media. The one thing it saves is your subtitle choice for a video, the same way Plex’s own apps do.
No. Channel Surf is an independent app that works with Plex Media Server. It isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Plex, Inc.