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 – immediately.

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

You open the app in your TV, telephone, or laptop computer, scroll for quarter-hour to search out one thing new to observe, solely to finish up rewatching the identical consolation present, and name it an evening. However beneath Netflix’s acquainted rows of flicks 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.

Additionally: This genius new Roku function helps you discover every little thing you want a lot quicker – this is how

Consider it or not, Netflix is a really customizable platform immediately. Beneath are my favourite suggestions and tips each consumer ought to know.

1. Netflix codes

Netflix has hundreds 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 need to use free sources like Netflix-Codes or What’s On Netflix to search out codes and uncover obscure, hidden picks so as to add to your watchlist and look at on any machine.

1. Open Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
2. Nonetheless in your browser, go to: netflix.com/browse/style/XXXX.
3. Exchange XXXX within the URL with a code (instance: 11146 for Fantasy Anime).
4. You’ll be able to 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 machine.

Additionally: I used Netflix’s secret codes to quintuple my viewing choices — this is how

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 searching choices to your own home display.

2. Discover each Netflix Authentic with one phrase

Right here is an easy trick I exploit usually: Simply kind “Netflix” into the search bar to tug up each Netflix Authentic out there in your area, together with upcoming releases and stay occasions. Bonus: It’s also possible to search “4K” or “HDR” to search out titles in these particular codecs.

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

3. Take away reveals from Proceed Watching

My Proceed Watching row is mainly a graveyard of flicks 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.

Additionally: Each Roku consumer ought to know these 15+ shortcuts that unlock the system’s finest options

• Cell app: Open Netflix, go to Proceed Watching, faucet the three-dot menu below 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.
• Internet: 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 accomplice? 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 protected.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
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 individuals assume Netflix’s autoplay function is a bit aggressive. I am not certainly one of them, however should you don’t love homepage trailers enjoying loudly as you scroll by rows on the lookout for one thing to observe, you may flip them off for good. It’s also possible to disable episode autoplay, which is when Netflix robotically queues up the following episode of a collection you are watching.

Additionally: How I turned my low-cost Roku TV into a chunk of artwork (just like the $3,000 Samsung Body TV)

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
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

In the event you share your account with different individuals in your loved ones, corresponding to your youngsters, and need to ensure that they can’t entry your profile, mess up your suggestions, or see your watch historical past, you may maintain it non-public by locking it with a PIN.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
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 permits you to sign off of particular person units, not simply “Signal out of all.” That is nice for exes, Airbnb TVs, or suspicious logins.

Additionally: Your Roku has secret menus and screens – this is the way to unlock them

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
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 machine.

8. Switch your profile to a brand new account

Did password-sharing guidelines kill your capability to share your mother and father’ or a pal’s account? You should not have to say goodbye to the profile you have used of their family for the final decade. You’ll be able to take it with you and maintain your watchlist, historical past, and proposals intact.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
2. Go to the Account icon.
3. Select Switch Profile.
4. Comply with the setup wizard.
5. Notice: Youngsters’ profiles can’t be transferred.

9. Cease Netflix from sharing your information with advertisers

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

Additionally: Personal an Apple TV? I modified these 12 settings to make the system run like new once more

By default, it permits a function known as “matched identifier communications,” which suggests Netflix could share your contact info (like an e-mail or telephone quantity) with third events to raised match you throughout providers and present advertisements on different platforms. If you wish to restrict how a lot “privacy-protected” information Netflix can share about you for advertising and marketing functions, it is value disabling this setting.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
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 Choose Out of All.

10. Obtain reveals for offline viewing

Netflix permits you to obtain films and TV reveals to observe on lengthy flights, street journeys, or anytime you should not have Wi-Fi. This one is fairly well-known by now, however it’s value together with right here when you’ve got not used it but.

1. Open the Netflix cell 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 observe offline later.

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

11. Activate Good Downloads or Downloads for You

In the event you like downloading films and reveals to observe in your commute, attempt Netflix’s Good Downloads function. It robotically deletes watched episodes and downloads the following one for you. It’s also possible to attempt enabling Downloads for You, which lets Netflix obtain titles it thinks you may need to watch. Each options work on Android, iPhone, and iPad.

Additionally: I used 11 secret Fireplace TV distant shortcuts to unlock new options and menus

1. Open the Netflix cell app.
2. Faucet Account icon/My Netflix, then Downloads on the high.
3. Underneath Downloads, faucet Good Downloads after which set it up.
4. It’s also possible to alter how a lot storage Netflix can use for automated downloads.
5. Again below Downloads, faucet Good Downloads, and toggle Downloads for You on or off.

Notice: It’s also possible to discover the settings for Good Downloads below Account icon/My Netflix > App Settings.

12. Cut back cell information utilization

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

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Netflix gives 4 cell 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 cell app.
2. Go to App Settings.
3. Choose Mobile Knowledge Utilization.
4. Swap to Save Knowledge or Wi-Fi Solely.

13. Pressure Netflix to stream in HD or 4K

Watching on-line and questioning if you’re truly seeing the very best playback setting out there to you? You’ll be able to alter your settings to make certain. Netflix gives 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 based mostly in your connection.

1. Go to Netflix.com in your browser and sign up.
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 may be reformatted to your liking? You’ll be able to change the scale, coloration, and extra at any time.

Additionally: I used 11 secret Fireplace TV distant shortcuts to unlock new options and menus

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

15. Strive dialogue-only subtitles

Final yr, 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 function is restricted to English and seems principally in newer Netflix Originals.

1. Begin enjoying 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 certainly one of Netflix’s most useful accessibility options. It provides a narrated voice monitor that explains what is occurring on-screen between strains of dialogue, together with facial expressions, actions, settings, and different visible particulars you would possibly in any other case miss.

Additionally: Personal a Fireplace TV? I modified 10 settings to make the system run like new once more

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

1. In Netflix search, kind Audio Description to search out supported titles.
2. Begin enjoying a present or film.
3. Open the Audio and Subtitles menu.
4. Choose the AD (Audio Description) monitor, if out there.

17. Use keyboard shortcuts on a laptop computer

Watching Netflix in a browser? Strive 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 function known as Moments that permits you to save and share scenes like TikTok clips. It is just out there on cell, and you can’t create clips from stay occasions, trailers, downloaded reveals or films, or Netflix video games.

Additionally: How you can clear your Roku TV cache (and say goodbye to gradual efficiency)

1. Open the Netflix cell app and begin watching a title.
2. Whereas watching, faucet the display and choose Moments or Clip.
3. Set a begin and finish time. Clips may 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 function for upcoming releases. It can notify you as quickly as a title turns into out there 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 robotically add it to My Checklist.

20. Request reveals or films to be added

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

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

21. Be part of Netflix’s function check program

It is enjoyable to attempt 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 it’s good to choose in.

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

How a lot does Netflix value?

Netflix has three principal plans as of January 2026, with pricing based mostly on video high quality, machine limits, and additional members.

Does Netflix have a free trial?

Netflix presently doesn’t provide a free trial within the US.