How to Make a New Profile on Netflix

Netflix profiles are one of the platform's most useful features, yet plenty of people never fully take advantage of them. Whether you're sharing an account with family members, want to keep your kids' viewing separate from yours, or simply want a clean slate for a different type of content, knowing how to create and manage profiles is fundamental to getting the most from your subscription.

What a Netflix Profile Actually Does

A Netflix profile is a personalized viewing space within a single account. Each profile maintains its own:

• Watch history — what you've watched and how far through you are
• My List — saved titles you want to watch later
• Recommendations — the algorithm learns from that profile's viewing habits independently
• Viewing preferences — language, subtitle defaults, and playback settings
• Maturity ratings — content restrictions you can set per profile

Profiles don't affect billing. Everyone on the account shares the same subscription tier and its associated features. What changes is the experience each person gets inside that account.

How Many Profiles Can You Create?

Netflix allows up to five profiles per account, regardless of your subscription plan. This limit applies even if your plan supports multiple simultaneous streams. The two numbers — profiles and simultaneous streams — are separate things. You can have five profiles set up and only two people watching at the same time (if you're on a Standard plan, for example).

How to Add a New Profile on Netflix 🖥️

The steps vary slightly depending on your device, but the core process is consistent.

On a Web Browser (Desktop or Laptop)

1. Go to netflix.com and sign in
2. On the profile selection screen, look for the option to Add Profile — it appears as a tile with a plus (+) icon alongside your existing profiles
3. Click it, then type in a name for the new profile
4. If you want to set this up as a Kids profile (which limits content to age-appropriate titles), toggle that option on
5. Click Continue — the profile is created immediately
6. You can then go into Manage Profiles to add an avatar image or adjust settings

On a Smart TV or Streaming Device

1. Open the Netflix app and reach the Who's Watching? screen
2. Select Add Profile (the + tile)
3. Use your remote to enter a name using the on-screen keyboard
4. Choose whether to enable Kids mode
5. Select Save or Continue

Note: Some older smart TV apps have a more limited profile management interface. If you find you can't add an avatar or adjust certain settings from your TV, log in through a browser — changes made there sync across all devices automatically.

On a Mobile Device (iOS or Android)

1. Open the Netflix app
2. Tap your profile icon in the top-right corner
3. Select Manage Profiles
4. Tap the Add Profile option (shown as a + icon)
5. Enter a name and toggle Kids if appropriate
6. Tap Continue

Profile Settings Worth Knowing About

Once a profile exists, a few settings are worth configuring depending on who will use it.

Profile Lock is particularly useful if you're sharing an account with others and want to keep your recommendations clean — or if you want to stop kids from accidentally wandering into your profile.

Kids Profiles: What Changes

When you create a profile with Kids mode enabled, the experience changes significantly. The Netflix interface switches to a simplified, child-friendly layout. Content is automatically filtered to titles appropriate for younger audiences, and the search function only surfaces age-appropriate results.

Kids profiles cannot be given a PIN lock in the traditional sense — the restriction is built into the profile type itself. If you want more granular control over what a child can access (for example, allowing some but not all teen content), a standard profile with a custom maturity rating set may give you more flexibility than the Kids toggle.

Variables That Affect Your Setup

How you use profiles depends heavily on your situation:

• Household size — five profiles cover most families, but if you're at the limit, you'll need to edit or delete an existing profile before adding a new one
• Subscription plan — your plan determines simultaneous streams and video quality, not profile count, but it affects how many people can realistically use the account at once
• Device ecosystem — profile management is most complete in a browser; TV and mobile apps may not expose every setting
• Kids vs. age-restricted content — the Kids toggle is a blunt instrument; a manually configured maturity rating gives more precision for older children or teens
• Profile sharing habits — if multiple people share a profile rather than using their own, recommendations become muddled quickly

Netflix's recommendation engine is trained on individual viewing behavior. One profile shared between two people with different tastes will gradually produce suggestions that satisfy neither of them particularly well. Separate profiles solve this directly. 📺

What Happens to an Existing Profile If You Edit It

Editing a profile — changing the name, avatar, or maturity settings — doesn't affect watch history or My List. Those persist unless you manually clear them or delete the profile entirely. Deleting a profile is permanent: all history, preferences, and saved content associated with it are gone and cannot be recovered.

Whether creating one profile per person makes sense, or whether combining viewers into fewer profiles is more practical, depends entirely on how your household watches content and what matters most to each person using the account.