You can now create user profiles on Amazon Prime to get personalised recommendations

(Photo: Shutterstock)(Photo: Shutterstock)
(Photo: Shutterstock)

Amazon Prime has introduced user profiles to its service for the first time.

“But hang on, I already have a user profile,” you may well think, “what’s my login and password for?”

Separate user profiles are handy if there is more than one person using a single account.

Have you ever wondered what to watch next, only to find your recommendations have been skewed by a younger family member binge-watching episodes of Peppa Pig?

User profiles can put a stop to that.

Here’s how they work:

What do user profiles do?

Separate user profiles have been evident on rival streaming services for years now, and are now commonplace, but have strangely been absent from Amazons’ streaming services.

They allow multiple users to access streaming content under one login, and can keep recommendations and viewing histories intact for each individual user, rather than have the service work out a rough amalgamation for you all.

They’re easy to set up on Amazon Prime, and you can have up to six profiles tied to a single account.

How do I set up a user profile?

From the Amazon home page, click “Prime Video” in the top bar.

Click the drop-down menu in the upper right next to your name to bring up the account list and click “Add new.”

You’ll have to enter a name, and also select if it is a child’s account, where content is limited to anything appropriate for ages 12 and under; you also can’t purchase anything directly from a child’s account.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if you are as yet able to customise user profiles any further, and Amazon currently lacks Netflix’s colourful avatars.

If you don’t want any user profiles, you can also disable the feature altogether from the “manage your profiles” page.

Are there any restrictions?

Despite the ability to create six profiles, streaming limits still apply.

This means you can make use of up to three simultaneous streams, but only two of them can be watching the same video.

When can I begin to create user profiles?

The new feature was rolled out to users worldwide on 8 July, so you should be able to set up six user profiles right now.

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