It’s okay, you’re not the only person with guilty pleasure TV series or movies that you watch on Netflix. Not by a long shot. In fact, Netflix clearly knows that because there’s a feature that lets you remove shows and films from your viewing history! Then again, perhaps you should let your girlfriend see all of your choices so she has a better sense of who you really are? 🙂
Just kidding, don’t freak out or anything!
The wrinkle is that you can’t get to and clean up your viewing history from the mobile app or the AppleTV app. You need to jump onto your computer and log in to Netflix through a Web browser. Hopefully you know your password so you can do so before she shows up. Hurry, man, hurry!
Again just kidding. Sort of.
Anyway, anyway. Log in to Netflix then choose the correct profile (if you have more than one) from the menu on the top right. I have quite a few because each of my kids has their own profile:
Once you have the profile you want to tweak, choose “Account” from this same menu.
Now you’ll see your billing information, what type of account you have, etc:
Might be a good time to update your password, but if you want to really stay focused, scroll down until you get to the following section of information:
The option you want to click on is “Viewing activity“.
Click on that and you’ll see a list of every show and every movie you’ve ever watched (no kidding) in temporal order. Here are the last few things I watched on Netflix as an example:
Yes, it’s true. I have been watching the rather daft animated series Disenchantment while I work out. Am I embarrassed? Well, at this point you now know, so there’s not much point to worrying about it. But suppose I was really embarrassed? To remove an episode from my viewing history, click on the circle with the slash through it. The tool tip gives you the scoop:
Click or tap on the graphic (tho why they don’t have a tiny trashcan like every other site baffles me) and you’ll get a rather wordy explanation of what’ll happen:
In case you can’t read that, it says “Within 24 hours, Disenchantment: Part 1: “Swamp and Circumstance” will no longer appear in the Netflix service as a title you have watched and will no longer be used to make recommendations to you.” Done. Though apparently there’s a 24 hour delay on actually removing it from your viewing history.
Also notice the blue link on the right: “Hide series?“. Choose that and, well, they all get the same message:
With this information, you should be able to get rid of Coed Strippers vs Zombie Killers and Baristas Gone Wild: Director’s Cut from your viewing history, along with anything else you want to hide from your girlfriend. Good luck!
The post How to Erase Your Netflix Viewing History Fast! originally appeared on Ask Dave Taylor.
