Announced about a week ago, Netflix now allows you to download selected movies, show episodes on your smartphone or tablet and watch them offline without an internet connection or using your data. It’s a big step forward that puts a huge pressure on all its competitors.
All you need to get started is to update Netflix app on your device first. Once you have an updated Netflix app, open the app and find the show you want to download and watch. If you are lucky, you will see the download button right next to the show.
Clicking on it will start the download process right away.
The size of a 45-minute show isn’t very big. The first episode of Season 1 of The Crown is only about 212 MB on my iPhone, which takes only about 5 minutes to download.
To watch, simply click the title and enjoy.
To delete a downloaded title once finished,
- Tap the Menu icon
. - Tap My Downloads.
- Tap Edit in the upper right corner of your screen.
- Tap the red X icon to remove the title from your device.
Here are a few more notes worth mentioning:
- The offline watch is only available on devices that run iOS (8.0 or later) and Android (4.4.2 or later).
- You will need the latest version of Netflix app on your device, which is quite obvious.
- Downloading and streaming consume similar amounts of data. So it’s still a good idea downloading while connecting to a Wi-Fi.
- The video quality is set Standard (720×480) by default. Since the offline watch is only available on mobile and tablet devices, it’s good enough in most cases. Plus, it downloads faster and uses less storage. But if you insist going higher, go to Settings in the app, Video Quality, and switch to Higher.
- The downloaded files are encrypted and protected by the copyrights so they can not be extracted and saved elsewhere.
- Also, it also doesn’t seem to have an expiry date set on the downloaded copy. At least, I couldn’t find it on my device.