Invite a friend to Series Lock

What an invitation does

A Series Lock invitation asks a friend to share episode progress for one series. They choose the participating profile on their own Odyssey account. No progress is shared through the invitation before they accept.

Friendship, an invitation and participation are three different states. First confirm the friendship. Then create the lock and send its invitation. Finally, the recipient chooses whether to join. An invitation does not grant a provider subscription, a source login or media rights.

Prepare the participants

Both sides need eligible profiles connected to Odyssey accounts and access to the relevant series through authorised sources. The sender needs an accepted friend in Friends & Invitations.

If the lock requires a PIN for Watch Anyway, each selected profile needs a profile PIN. A recipient cannot join that protected lock until the chosen profile has the necessary PIN setup. Do not exchange PINs or full management codes to solve this.

Restricted household profiles labelled Kids profiles can join household-only locks. They cannot be combined with friends from other accounts in this flow. Odyssey’s website remains for adults aged 18 or over.

Send the invitation

1. Open the series information page. Choose Lock Series, using the ⋯ menu on Apple TV.
2. Choose Together or Separately and review the optional Require profile PIN for Watch Anyway setting.
3. Keep your own profile selected and select the friend under Friends on other Odyssey accounts.
4. Choose Lock Series.
5. Open Manage Series Lock to check the pending invitation count and the joined participants.

An unaccepted invitation is not a joined member. The current waiting rule evaluates joined members’ progress.

Accept with the right profile

1. Switch to the profile you intend to use for the series.
2. Open Settings → Profiles → Manage Family Profiles → My Series Locks.
3. Read the invitation’s title, sender, mode and PIN requirement.
4. Choose Join with this profile to participate, or Decline if the request is not wanted.
5. Review the lock and your next episode before starting playback.

In Together mode, accepting can combine existing completion with the group. Choose Separately at creation if everyone needs to complete each episode independently. Do not accept a mode you have not agreed to.

Worked example

Sam invites an accepted friend to a Separately lock for a weekly drama. The friend opens the invitation while using a general household profile, then realises their own viewing history belongs to another profile. They switch before accepting and join with the intended profile. Later completion on that profile updates their participation.

The two accounts may use different permitted sources for the same correctly identified series. Matching the series and episodes matters; matching account credentials is neither required nor appropriate.

Leave or resolve a missing invitation

After joining, use Manage Series Lock → Leave Lock if you no longer want to participate. The creator has Remove Lock, which ends the lock. Declining before joining avoids creating participation.

No friend appears: check that the friend request was accepted. The code or email entry in Friends is only the first step.

The invitation is unavailable: it may have expired, been declined, already been used or belonged to a removed lock. Ask the sender to review the current group rather than repeatedly trying a stale invitation.

Joining reports a PIN problem: set the chosen profile’s PIN through its profile controls, then retry while that profile remains active.

The profile already has a lock: inspect My Series Locks. The service rejects overlapping participation for the same series instead of silently replacing the existing group.

Quick answers

Can I choose a profile after joining? The acceptance action explicitly uses the active profile. The current UI does not provide a transfer-participation control, so choose carefully before accepting.

Does Remove Friend also manage my lock? Do not rely on a friendship change as the lock-management action. Review the series and use its explicit leave or remove control.