How to set or change the primary PS5 in your PSN account

When you set up a PlayStation 5 for the first time, you’ll need to create a PlayStation Network (PSN) account to play online with friends and purchase games to add to your library. Once you’ve set up your PSN account and signed in on a new PS5 console, you’ll have the option to enable Gameshare – known as the console sharing and offline play feature – on the device.

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Assuming you haven’t already enabled the feature on another console, Game Sharing is enabled by default on the new PS5 – and this essentially makes the machine the primary PS5 on your PSN account. Other people in the household can also create accounts on the PS5 and then log into their own PSN accounts, allowing them to access your console and play their games there.

If these people don’t already have a primary PS5 assigned to them on their PSN accounts, the game sharing feature will be enabled by default. However, if they already have the game sharing feature enabled on another console, they will need to manually disable this feature before they can share games on your console. This is because the Console Sharing and Offline Play feature can only be enabled on one PS5 console at a time on a PSN account.

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If you’re using someone else’s PS5 and want to share your games with other signed-in users, you’ll first need to disable game sharing on your primary console. Here’s how:

1. Turn on your PS5 and sign in with your PSN account.
2. Select Settings (the gear icon) in the upper right corner of the screen.
3. Go to Users and Accounts.
4. Scroll down the side menu and select “Other”.
5. Select “Console Sharing” and “Offline Play”.

If the machine is indeed the primary PS5 on your PSN account, you should see a screen that says “(Console Sharing and Offline Play) is enabled for you on this PS5.” To share games on another device, click Disable. Note that while the feature is disabled on your machine, no one playing on it will be able to access your games and content.

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Once console sharing is disabled on your PS5, you can now use another machine and log into your PSN account to make that your new primary device. Simply follow the steps above until you get to the Console Sharing and Offline Play page. You’ll see a message saying you don’t have a PS5 with Game Sharing enabled. Click Enable to complete.

If you don’t have physical access to your primary computer and need to disable game sharing on it – and there’s no one there to do it manually for you – you can also do the process remotely. However, this comes with one major limitation.

To remotely disable console sharing on your PS5, you will need to disable and sign out of all devices connected to your PSN account. Before you proceed, it’s important to note that Sony does not offer a way to remotely disable a single console. In this scenario, to continue playing on your PlayStation devices, you will need to re-activate them and reconnect them to your PSN account once you have access to them again, assuming you stay within the activation limits. You can only connect one PS5, one PS4, up to three PS3s, and up to three PS Vita/TVs to your account.

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To deactivate all consoles on your PSN account at once:

1. In a web browser, go to playstation.com/acct/management.
2. Sign in with your PSN account.
3. In the sidebar, under “More settings,” select “Device management.”
4. Click on “PlayStation Consoles”.
5. Click “Disable all devices”.

A confirmation pop-up will appear on the screen. Note that you can only remotely deactivate all consoles linked to your PSN account once every six months. To proceed, click “Yes” in the dialog box. You may be asked to change your password to sign out of inaccessible consoles. At this point, you can log into another PS5 with your PSN account and set it as your primary machine. You can then follow the steps to enable Gameshare and share access to your game library with other players on the current device.

If for some reason you’re having trouble disabling console sharing on your own PS5 — and it makes it impossible to change the primary console linked to your PSN account — you can still log in and play your games on someone else’s computer. You just won’t be able to share your games library with anyone else on the console if Gameshare isn’t enabled.

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Additionally, a PlayStation Plus subscription is the only way to save and access game saves in the cloud from another console. If you don’t have a subscription and install one of your games on someone else’s PS5, you’ll have to start over as you won’t have access to your previously saved progress. Any local game saves on the other person’s console will also be unavailable on your own console.