New Netflix Feature Makes It Easier to Move in with Your Boyfriend

Netflix is making it easier for you to move your Netflix profile data to wherever you end up, whether that’s moving in with a new boyfriend, out of your parents’ basement, or because you got a new roommate.

The streamer on Tuesday rolled out a new wrinkle to its existing Profile Transfer feature: you can now transfer your profile to an existing account. When the feature launched back in October, you could only transfer your profile data to a new account. But that posed a challenge if, say, you wanted to use an email address associated with an inactive account, or if you were now being added to your significant other’s plan rather than your parents’ or siblings.’

“People move. Families grow. Relationships end. But throughout these life changes, your Netflix experience should stay the same,” Netflix previously wrote in its October blog post.

A Netflix rep added the “existing account” tweak to Profile Transfer was “a much requested feature from our members, and we’re excited to roll it out to everyone.”

It also coincidentally makes it easier for you to comply with Netflix’s current password sharing crackdown. The launch of Profile Transfer was a precursor to the streamer’s paid sharing model that launched back in May. If you’re in a different household than the account owner, the account owner could either add you to their plan for an additional $7.99 per month (and per borrower), or you could transfer your existing profile over to a new paid account, with Netflix plans starting at $6.99 (with ads).

This new feature captures a slightly different crowd that still wants to pay for Netflix but wants to do so without jumping through the hoops of creating a new profile and password, or perhaps wants to transfer their profile from one paid sharing account to another.

That’s good news for Netflix, seeing as the streamer saw a surge of signups in the days after paid sharing went into effect. According to data from Antenna last month, Netflix in a four-day span in late May saw an average of 73,000 new signups, which spiked over 102 percent compared to the prior 60-day average. The streamer also had way more cancellations than average, but Antenna said the new signups outpaced the cancellations by 25 percent.

Analysts have also predicted that paid sharing could be worth as much as $3 billion for the streamer, with many raising their stock price targets to as much as $500. Netflix hosts its earnings for its fiscal Q2 next week on July 19.

Netflix also recently made a tweak to its own internal measurement system for quantifying the top performing TV and films, ranking content based on the number of times it is viewed rather than the number of hours it is viewed. That change meant “Wednesday” took the top spot away from “Stranger Things 4” among the most popular English-language TV series. See some of the other notable changes to the global Top 10 lists here.