How to Keep Your Netflix and Other Streaming Accounts Safe When You Travel

As more and more hotels and vacation rentals use Smart TVs and allow guests to sign into their streaming accounts such as Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Disney+, Max, etc., it’s important to remember to sign out of those accounts when you check out.

Fortunately, most major hotels like those members of Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt chains usually wipe the TVs automatically when a guest checks out. However, there have been numerous times that I’ve turned on a TV in a vacation rental or an apartment and a previous guest’s account is still logged in so I just log out for them.

Usually, when we stay in a vacation rental and we log into our accounts, I set a reminder using a reminder service like FollowUpThen so I will get an email the morning we are checking out. Or you can go into your phone’s alarms and set one with a message.

What’s the big deal if you forget to sign out of your streaming accounts? Well, signing out helps you protect your privacy and you don’t want people to view your viewing history or worse, your personal information. You also want to avoid hitting the limit of users on a device and potentially incurring additional charges. There’s also a risk of your account getting hijacked altogether.

My wife thinks that she must have forgotten to sign out of her Netflix account once because she started seeing all kinds of shows in her profile under ‘Continue Watching’ that she’d never watched or even had any interest in. She didn’t love the thought of a stranger in her account and also, the shows they watched messed up her algorithm for a while so Netflix kept recommending shows that she’d never watch.

So remember, the next time you check out of a hotel or vacation rental, you have to sign out of any accounts on devices that you’ve used. It only takes a few seconds and this can help protect your privacy, security, and peace of mind as well as save you a lot of hassle,

Here’s how you can sign out of Netflix from a Smart TV:

1. Open the Netflix app on your TV.
2. From the main screen, navigate to the left and scroll down to the Settings or Get Help section.
3. Select Sign Out or Deactivate.
4. Confirm that you want to sign out.

I created a quick video (embedded above) showing how to do it, in case you need a visual aid.

If you forget to sign out of Netflix and don’t want to risk people getting into your account, you can just sign out of all devices. Here’s how:

1. Go to Netflix on a browser.
2. Click on your profile icon and select Account.
3. Under Settings, select Sign Out of All Devices.
4. This will log you out of Netflix on all devices.

This will ensure that your Netflix account remains secure and you won’t leave any of your personal info accessible to the next guest.

Since YouTube is another popular streaming device, here are directions for signing out of your account on a Smart TV:

1. Open the YouTube app on your smart TV.
2. Navigate to the left sidebar and scroll down to Settings.
3. Select Sign Out.
4. Confirm that you want to sign out, and you will be logged out of YouTube on the TV.

And if you forget to log out of YouTube on a device before leaving, you can sign out of all devices there too. Here’s how:

1. Go to Google Account Settings.
2. Under Security, click Your Devices.
3. Scroll to find the device where you’re still signed into YouTube.
4. Click on the device, then click Sign Out or Remove.

I hope this helps. Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever found someone else signed into their account on the TV at your rental or if you forgot to log out of yours and if it caused you problems.

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