Netflix Now Lets Users Transfer Profiles To Existing Accounts

Netflix is no longer a fan of password-sharing, but in order to dampen the sting on subscribers' wallets, it is allowing them to move their profiles from one account to another. Essentially, you can take your Netflix profile and link it to any account of your choice, as long as the account owner is okay with it. It can be an account belonging to your friends, family members, or just a group of colleagues sharing the bill for watching Netflix content.

So far, if users wanted to move their profile away from a Netflix account, the only option was to create a new account. But doing so means going through the hassle of a fresh sign-up, setting up the payment pipeline anew, and then also dealing with OTP or password prompts. 

That hurdle is finally over. In an email sent to Netflix customers, Netflix says "All global members will be able to port their profile from one account to an existing account." The feature goes live starting today and it will be available to Netflix users across the world. It can be initiated by hovering over the profile icon in the top right corner of the screen and selecting the Profile Transfer option appearing in the drop-down menu.

How generous are your Netflix-watching acquaintances?

The biggest benefit of profile transfer is that all your data, such as watching history, saved lists and games, and other personalized settings remain intact. All you need to do is find a new account destination to park it.

Once you've decided to exit a cluster of profiles hooked to an account, all you need to do is find another Netflix subscriber among your contacts with the space to accommodate another profile. Whether you pay a share of the subscription fee is up to the account owner's generosity.

However, if you want to share a Netflix account with a bunch of other people, but still want to save money, Netflix will let you create a sub-profile that is tied to an account, but you pay a slightly smaller fee. However, this feature is not available in all regions.

Profile Transfer is an optional feature, which means you can turn it off from the Settings section. The process of profile transfer is fairly straightforward, but the conclusion here is that Netflix wants you to pay up in order to access its content library, and the only way to avoid is if some generous soul welcomes your profile to their Netflix subscription.