[IMPORTANT: Make this 4 times longer with much more detail]
Leave the past behind. Image: Tech Daily/Unsplash Get the Popular Science daily newsletterđĄ Email address Sign up Thank you! Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The best streaming services have vast libraries of content, and thatâs where recommendations can be usefulâguiding you towards the movies and shows youâre most likely to enjoy, based on what youâve already seen. Sometimes though, recommendations donât work so well. Maybe someone else (a younger member of the family perhaps) has been using your account, and skewed the recommended titles in a direction you donât like. Maybe your recommendations arenât particularly helpful, or maybe you just want a fresh start away from everything youâve watched in the past. In those scenarios and others, resetting your recommendations can helpâand itâs not difficult to do, no matter the streaming services you use. Thereâs a certain liberation in wiping the viewing slate clean, and starting again. Netflix Netflix keeps track of everything you watch. Screenshot: Netflix Log into your Netflix account on the web , then hover over your account avatar (top right), and choose Manage Profiles and your name. You can then either click the circular icons to hide individual titles, or Hide all to hide everything. That should be enough to reset your recommendationsâthough you can refine them further by clicking on the thumbs up and thumbs down icons that appear when you hover the thumbnails on screen. Another option is to start again with a brand new profile. From the Manage Profiles page, click Add Profile , and you can go through the process of setting up a new oneâwith a fresh set of recommendations. Hulu Head to Hulu on the web , sign into your account, and hover over your account picture (top right): Choose Account , then select Privacy and Settings and California Privacy Rights . Select Watch History , then click Clear Selected . Note that this will delete the watch history for all of the profiles associated with your accountâso you should check with other family members first. With no viewing history to refer to, your recommendations should be reset. Another option is to create a new profile within your Hulu account, which will start with a blank slate. Hover over your account name (top right), then choose Add Profile to do this. Amazon Prime Video Titles on Prime Video must be removed one by one. Screenshot: Amazon If youâre an Amazon Prime Video subscriber, you can reset the recommendation algorithm by heading to the Prime Video website , hovering over your account avatar (top right), and clicking Account & Settings on the pop-up dialog. Next to anything you want to remove from your Prime Video watch history, click Delete movie from Watch History or Delete episodes from Watch History . Unfortunately, thereâs no bulk delete option, so this might take you quite a while. An alternative way of resetting your recommendations is to start with a fresh profile inside your Prime Video account. Hover over your account icon, then pick Add new and follow the instructions on screen. Disney Plus Disney Plus is unusual among streaming services in that it doesnât offer an option to reset your recommendations or edit your viewing history. Everything youâve ever watched is logged and canât be accessed. You canât even rate the recommendations youâre shown, or anything youâve previously watched. All you can do when youâve logged in on the web is to click the stop sign circle icons that appear on the Continue Watching bar to remove them. For a fresh set of recommendations on Disney Plus, you need to create a new profile, and itâs straightforward enough to do: Hover over your account picture (top right), then pick Add profile . Youâll then be asked to pick an avatar and a name. YouTube YouTube gives you plenty of control over how your history is logged. Screenshot: YouTube YouTube relies heavily on recommendations to keep you watching, and they pop up all over the interface. If you see something you donât like on the web , click the three dots next to it, then choose Not interested . For a comprehensive reset, hover over your account picture (top right), then pick Your data in YouTube . If you then click the arrow underneath YouTube Watch History , and Manage history , youâll see all the videos youâve watched recently. Click Delete and Delete all time , and you can do a full wipe and reset your recommendations. YouTube also gives you the option of deleting just some of your viewing history, and automatically deleting it after a certain time period. Apple TV Plus When it comes to Apple TV Plus, recommendations arenât as prominent (maybe because thereâs not quite as much content). However, you still get the For You section across different devices. The way you can reset your recommendations depends on which device youâre using as well. You need to clear your viewing history entirely: You canât remove individual titles, so itâs all or nothing. To do this on Apple TV Plus on the web, click your profile picture (top right), then choose Settings and Clear Play History . The same option is available via the Apple TV app on macOS: Choose TV > Settings > Advanced , then Clear Play History . More deals, reviews, and buying guides The PopSci team has tested hundreds of products and spent thousands of hours trying to find the best gear and gadgets you can buy. SEE MORE GEAR
