How to keep sharing your Netflix password

“Love is sharing a password.” No, that’s not Shakespeare; that’s a widely shared and, these days, deeply ironic official tweet from Netflix. I guess Netflix lost the love somewhere between then and now. These days, Netflix has gone to war on password sharing, pushing the customers of its pricier tiers to pay extra for a feature the company used to proudly embrace.

Thankfully, with some extra steps, you can relive the password-sharing glory days to go back to the way things used to be with your Netflix account.

In the good ol’ days, you could share your Netflix credentials with friends and family who could happily log in and watch content. As long as your Netflix subscription allowed for multiple streams, it didn’t matter if you, your boss, your nan and your ex were bingeing One Piece at the same time. Nowadays, Netflix views password sharing as something that’s only for those living under the same roof.

Now, technically, you and your household should still be able to have Netflix installed on a myriad of mobile devices and watch your fave flicks and shows while you’re on the road. But sharing your Netty password with someone in another home these days is more complicated than it used to be.

If you have or do share your Netflix password around, you’ll start to notice strange messages when you load up the app, prompting you to confirm your household and/or encouraging you to pay $7.99 per member to keep things how they used to be. Note that only Netflix Standard and Netflix Premium subscribers can add extra members. Considering those base plans are $18.99 and $25.99, respectively, that’s no small price leap.

There are additional limitations, too. Netflix Standard subscribers can pay for one extra member ($26.98 combined per month) while Netflix Premium subscribers can add up to two extra members (max $41.97 per month). As a current Netflix Premium subscriber who struggles to find the ongoing value relative to the regular price hikes, the prospect of paying extra for what used to be a reason to pay for the most expensive tier is a bit too rich for my blood.

So let’s talk workarounds.

I’ve been testing Netflix password-sharing bypasses for months now and there are only two viable options. The first is a massive pain in the proverbial, likely by design. As the account holder, I have to approve any household switch, not just if someone happens to be using Netflix whenever I am, but whenever they want to watch something.

That also includes me. Let me explain. If I’ve shifted household ownership to someone else, I have to go through the process of approving my household again. This is a time-limited request, which prompts the person seeing the household confirmation screen to verify the change either by email or SMS. Personally, I found SMS more convenient than email, but you have to approve the household change within a few minutes. That’s not particularly convenient if you’re not looking at your phone religiously.

I’ve switched between multiple households and my own dozens of times within the past few months without issue (albeit with plenty of frustration). The only disclaimer there is you will occasionally get a passive-aggressive message from Netflix with a reminder that you can add extra members. Thanks for the tip, Netty.

The above is not the best solution but it is the one that doesn’t require as much effort as the less-hounding fix below.

NordVPN subscribers can access a neat feature called Meshnet, which acts as a virtual local network that’s accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. This is important because Netflix is clearly using IP addresses as part of how it sniffs out when an account is being used in multiple households. Meshnet creates a single IP address that external devices can connect to, thereby not flagging that these devices are in different locations.

For starters, you need a NordVPN account. Meshnet is one of the options in the NordVPN sidebar, and I absolutely advise setting it up on a computer to make life easier. Toggle the Meshnet option on, then take note of the text to the left of “This device”. That text name or IP address beneath the Meshnet name is what you’ll use on other devices, effectively routing the internet traffic of any external device under a single IP address run by the account holder. Now just make sure you’ve run Netflix on the Meshnet-enabled device, and you should be good to share your Netflix password and the Meshnet details with other (trusted) households.

There are catches. For starters, everyone needs to sign up for a NordVPN account. The next hurdle is the Meshnet device in the Netflix account holder’s home needs to be on whenever someone wants to use this bypass. If you have a computer you don’t mind leaving on all the time or during peak Netflix consumption hours, that’s easy enough. Ideally, set up Meshnet on a lower-power computer, like a Raspberry Pi or similar, so that you can leave it on 24/7 without being pestered with ‘I need Netflix now’ requests, and it should consume less power.

Note that NordVPN isn’t necessarily available on every Netflix-compatible device, but there is a healthy selection of platforms:

• Windows
• MacOS
• Linux
• Android (including Android TV)
• iOS
• Browsers (including Chrome, Firefox and Edge