David Farnor | On 12, Jul 2020

Amazon Prime Video has added support for multiple user profiles within each Amazon account.

The online retailer’s streaming arm has increasingly stepped up its online content in recent years to assemble an impressive catalogue of originals and exclusives, but its interface and services have long been a confusing area for viewers. Amazon Prime Video has three components: the Prime Video store to buy and rent titles, TV shows and films that are included with an Amazon Prime Video subscription or Amazon Prime membership, and Prime Video Channels, a platform for other, add-on subscriptions to third-party streamers such as STARZPLAY and Shudder.

While Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices have helped to clear things up with their streamlined interface, Amazon’s website has been slower to catch up, with the introduction of Amazon Prime Video Explorer – a pick-and-recommend discovery service – and a new dedicated hub for all things Prime Video, dividing things into titles that are “Free to Me” and the pay-per-view “Store”, as well as a “Kids” section.

Now, it’s gone one step further and finally added a feature that has been standard on Netflix, Disney+ and other services for some time: individual user profiles.

Each Amazon account can now have up to six profiles. Each of those will get their own personalised recommendations, watch history, season progress and watchlist. A designated “Kids” profile is also available, which means that only age-appropriate content will be shown in recommendations and search results. Kids profiles can also be prohibited from buying any programmes or films unwittingly, which means parents won’t be surprised by unexpected items on their list of Amazon purchases. (To block Kids from purchasing on non-Kids profiles, users can also enable ‘Purchase Restrictions’ under Prime Video ‘Settings’ to prevent purchasing without a PIN number.)

Profiles are available on the Amazon website, as well as on iOS and Android apps, plus Fire TV devices and other streaming dongles and games consoles.

To manage your Amazon Prime Video profiles, head to www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/profiles.

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