How to Delete Netflix Viewing History

For a long time, it was impossible to delete your netflix viewing historyIt was available for viewing not only by yourself, but by anyone who you added as a friend on Netflix. The company looked at is as a way to use social media to get more people to watch things, and potentially bring in more viewers. However, in order to give the company the most exposure to this social advantage, they created a system that originally didn’t allow anyone to delete anything in their browsing history.

This created a two-fold problem. First, people who realized this would refuse to watch things that they were embarrassed to watch. The English Literature Ph.D. with the love of teen movies and connections with their colleagues would skip movies they would otherwise love, and people who didn’t realize they had no way of watching a movie incognito would be very angry with netflix, and this resulted in a number of angry conversations with customer service, and probably more than one cancellation.

So, as time moved on, Netflix, a company who prides itself on moving with the flow (Blockbuster once called them a concept that wouldn’t work, because people like to choose their movies on the spur of the moment without waiting), and who has had several additional innovations, like an all-streaming subscription when DVDs were beginning to become passe, has finally changed their tune.

So as of the end of 2014, you can now delete anything you want from your Netflix viewing history, or even the whole thing. Not only that, but they made it very, very easy to do. Simply log into your netflix account by using your login name and password. Next, go to “my account.” There is a section under the category called “My Profile” that says “Viewing Activity.” If you choose this category, you will be presented with a list of all the movies you have watched, both by streaming and on DVD. As you already know, this is something that is available for others to discover about you as well.

Now you will find that there is a check box next to each of the items in your viewing history. You will be able, one by one, to check any and all of the movies that you have watched, and delete them from your history. This allows you to indulge in all the guilty pleasures you want, from now on, without having to explain your taste to others anymore.