21 secret Netflix settings I use to instantly upgrade my streaming experience

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• Netflix has hidden settings that make it immediately extra highly effective.
• There are additionally cheat codes, buried toggles, and obscure options.
• Unlock extra content material and improve your expertise – as we speak.

Netflix appears fairly simple and straightforward to make use of, proper?

You open the app in your TV, cellphone, or laptop computer, scroll for quarter-hour to search out one thing new to look at, solely to finish up rewatching the identical consolation present, and name it an evening. However beneath Netflix’s acquainted rows of films and TV reveals lies a world of hidden settings, cheat codes, power-user shortcuts, and privateness controls that allow you to do far more than simply binge-watch.

Consider it or not, Netflix is a really customizable platform as we speak. Under are my favourite suggestions and methods each person ought to know.

1. Netflix codes

Netflix has 1000’s of micro-genres that don’t present up in the primary interface. These style codes — aka, cheat codes — allow you to soar straight into new classes, like Traditional Motion and Journey Movies and Fantasy Anime. You should use free sources like Netflix-Codes or What’s On Netflix to search out codes and uncover obscure, hidden choices so as to add to your watchlist and examine on any system.

1. Open Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Nonetheless in your browser, go to: netflix.com/browse/style/XXXX.
3. Change XXXX within the URL with a code (instance: 11146 for Fantasy Anime).
4. You possibly can go to Netflix-Codes or What’s On Netflix to search out extra codes.
5. Browse the micro-genres and watch a title immediately out of your browser.
6. Or add titles to your Netflix watchlist to view on any system.

Browser extensions like FindFlix (Firefox) and Higher Browse for Netflix (Chrome) could make it even simpler to entry Netflix’s micro-genres. As soon as put in, they add new looking choices to your property display screen.

2. Discover each Netflix Authentic with one phrase

Right here is an easy trick I exploit typically: Simply kind “Netflix” into the search bar to tug up each Netflix Authentic obtainable in your area, together with upcoming releases and reside occasions. Bonus: You may as well search “4K” or “HDR” to search out titles in these particular codecs.

1. Open Netflix (cellular, TV, or internet).
2. Go to Search.
3. Kind Netflix.
4. Browse Netflix Originals and begin watching immediately.

3. Take away reveals from Proceed Watching

My Proceed Watching row is principally a graveyard of films and reveals I by no means completed. You inform your self you may get again to them, however some titles won’t be for you, in order that they sit there haunting you. The excellent news is you may purge any title from that row.

• Cell app: Open Netflix, go to Proceed Watching, faucet the three-dot menu underneath a title, and choose Take away from row.
• TV app: Open Netflix, go to Proceed Watching, press and maintain the choose button on a title, and select Take away.
• Net: Open Netflix.com, go to Proceed Watching, hover over a title, and click on the X.

4. Delete titles out of your watch historical past

Did you cheat and begin a present with out telling your associate? Higher cover the proof by eradicating it out of your viewing exercise. This wipes it out of your historical past prefer it by no means occurred and retains your secret secure.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account icon > Handle Profiles > Choose your profile.
3. Scroll to Viewing Exercise.
4. Click on the cover icon subsequent to the title.

5. Disable autoplay previews and subsequent episodes

Some folks suppose Netflix’s autoplay characteristic is a bit aggressive. I am not one in every of them, however in case you don’t love homepage trailers taking part in loudly as you scroll via rows on the lookout for one thing to look at, you may flip them off for good. You may as well disable episode autoplay, which is when Netflix routinely queues up the subsequent episode of a sequence you are watching.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account icon > Account.
3. Choose Playback Settings.
4. Uncheck Autoplay subsequent episode and Autoplay previews.

6. Lock your Netflix profile with a PIN

If you happen to share your account with different folks in your loved ones, akin to your children, and need to ensure they can’t entry your profile, mess up your suggestions, or see your watch historical past, you may hold it non-public by locking it with a PIN.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account icon > Handle Profiles > Choose your profile > Profile Lock.
3. Create a 4-digit PIN.

7. Kick units off your Netflix account remotely

Netflix now enables you to log off of particular person units, not simply “Signal out of all.” That is nice for exes, Airbnb TVs, or suspicious logins.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account.
3. Choose Gadgets.
4. Go to Handle Entry and Gadgets.
5. Click on the drop-down after which signal out for any system.

8. Switch your profile to a brand new account

Did password-sharing guidelines kill your capacity to share your mother and father’ or a buddy’s account? You would not have to say goodbye to the profile you’ve got used of their family for the final decade. You possibly can take it with you and hold your watchlist, historical past, and suggestions intact.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to the Account icon.
3. Select Switch Profile.
4. Observe the setup wizard.
5. Notice: Children’ profiles can’t be transferred.

9. Cease Netflix from sharing your information with advertisers

Netflix has a unusually worded privateness setting that permits information sharing for promoting.

By default, it allows a characteristic referred to as “matched identifier communications,” which implies Netflix could share your contact info (like an e mail or cellphone quantity) with third events to higher match you throughout providers and present adverts on different platforms. If you wish to restrict how a lot “privacy-protected” information Netflix can share about you for advertising functions, it is value disabling this setting.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account icon > Handle Profiles > Choose your profile.
3. Go to Privateness and Knowledge Settings.
4. Toggle off Permit matched identifier communications and choose Decide Out of All.

10. Obtain reveals for offline viewing

Netflix enables you to obtain motion pictures and TV reveals to look at on lengthy flights, street journeys, or anytime you would not have Wi-Fi. This one is fairly well-known by now, however it’s value together with right here when you have not used it but.

1. Open the Netflix cellular app.
2. Discover a film or TV episode with the Obtain icon.
3. Faucet three-dot menu > Obtain.
4. Go to Downloads or My Netflix to look at offline later.

Obtain limits rely in your plan, and downloads expire after a set interval.

11. Activate Sensible Downloads or Downloads for You

If you happen to like downloading motion pictures and reveals to look at in your commute, strive Netflix’s Sensible Downloads characteristic. It routinely deletes watched episodes and downloads the subsequent one for you. You may as well strive enabling Downloads for You, which lets Netflix obtain titles it thinks you may need to watch. Each options work on Android, iPhone, and iPad.

1. Open the Netflix cellular app.
2. Faucet Account icon/My Netflix, then Downloads on the high.
3. Below Downloads, faucet Sensible Downloads after which set it up.
4. You may as well regulate how a lot storage Netflix can use for computerized downloads.
5. Again underneath Downloads, faucet Sensible Downloads, and toggle Downloads for You on or off.

Notice: You may as well discover the settings for Sensible Downloads underneath Account icon/My Netflix > App Settings.

12. Cut back cellular information utilization

Use Netflix on the go and off Wi-Fi? Then you realize it could burn via information quick. Fortunately, you may cap your information utilization.

Netflix provides 4 cellular information settings — Computerized (about 4 hours per GB), Wi-Fi Solely (no mobile streaming), Save Knowledge (about 6 hours per GB), and Most Knowledge (as much as about 1 GB per 20 minutes) — so you may steadiness video high quality with information utilization.

1. Open the Netflix cellular app.
2. Go to App Settings.
3. Choose Mobile Knowledge Utilization.
4. Swap to Save Knowledge or Wi-Fi Solely.

13. Power Netflix to stream in HD or 4K

Watching on-line and questioning in case you are really seeing the very best playback setting obtainable to you? You possibly can regulate your settings to make sure. Netflix provides 4 information utilization choices — Low, Medium, Excessive, and Auto — starting from about 0.3 GB per hour on Low to as a lot as 7 GB per hour in Extremely HD on Excessive, whereas Auto adjusts high quality primarily based in your connection.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account icon > Handle Profiles > choose your Profile.
3. Choose Playback Settings.
4. Set Knowledge Utilization per Display screen to Excessive.

14. Customise subtitle look

Do you know Netflix subtitles will be reformatted to your liking? You possibly can change the scale, coloration, and extra at any time.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to Account icon > Handle Profiles > choose your Profile.
3. Choose Subtitle Look.
4. Alter font, dimension, shadow, and background.

15. Attempt dialogue-only subtitles

Final 12 months, Netflix launched dialogue-only subtitles, a cleaner subtitle choice that removes sound cues like “dramatic music” or “door creaks.” As an alternative, you solely see the spoken dialogue, which makes subtitles much less distracting. Proper now, this characteristic is proscribed to English and seems principally in newer Netflix Originals.

1. Begin taking part in a present or film.
2. Open the Subtitles menu.
3. Choose the English subtitle choice with out “CC” within the label.

16. Use Audio Descriptions for narration

In case you are blind, have low imaginative and prescient, or just like listening to a present whereas multitasking, Audio Description is one in every of Netflix’s most useful accessibility options. It provides a narrated voice observe that explains what is going on on-screen between traces of dialogue, together with facial expressions, actions, settings, and different visible particulars you may in any other case miss.

Audio Descriptions can be found throughout most Originals, and Netflix has expanded them to a number of newer motion pictures and reveals, too.

1. In Netflix search, kind Audio Description to search out supported titles.
2. Begin taking part in a present or film.
3. Open the Audio and Subtitles menu.
4. Choose the AD (Audio Description) observe, if obtainable.

17. Use keyboard shortcuts on a laptop computer

Watching Netflix in a browser? Attempt utilizing keyboard shortcuts to manage your playback. Listed here are some helpful ones:

• House: Play/Pause
• Arrows: Skip ahead/again
• F: Fullscreen
• M: Mute
• S: Skip intro

18. Share clips of your film or present

Netflix has a characteristic referred to as Moments that allows you to save and share scenes like TikTok clips. It is just obtainable on cellular, and you can not create clips from reside occasions, trailers, downloaded reveals or motion pictures, or Netflix video games.

1. Open the Netflix cellular app and begin watching a title.
2. Whereas watching, faucet the display screen and choose Moments or Clip.
3. Set a begin and finish time. Clips will be as much as two minutes lengthy.
4. Faucet Save.
5. Rewatch later in My Netflix, or share it with anybody.

19. Set reminders for upcoming reveals

Netflix has a Remind Me characteristic for upcoming releases. It’s going to notify you as quickly as a title turns into obtainable to stream.

1. Open the title web page for an upcoming present or film.
2. Faucet Remind Me.
3. Netflix will ship you a notification (or e mail) when it drops, and it’ll routinely add it to My Checklist.

20. Request reveals or motion pictures to be added

Sure, Netflix has a request type. If sufficient folks ask, a title could ultimately present up. Fingers crossed!

1. In your browser, go to: Netflix Assist: Request TV Exhibits or Films.
2. Submit as much as three strategies.

21. Be part of Netflix’s characteristic check program

It is enjoyable to strive experimental options earlier than they roll out to everybody else. Netflix has a check participation program the place you are able to do simply that, however you should decide in.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and register.
2. Go to this web page: https://www.netflix.com/donottest.
3. Toggle On.

How a lot does Netflix value?

Netflix has three important plans as of January 2026, with pricing primarily based on video high quality, system limits, and further members.

Does Netflix have a free trial?

Netflix at present doesn’t supply a free trial within the US.