Yup, you heard that right. You can now fully download TV shows and movies from Netflix for convenient offline viewing. There is no extra cost, no invite or any special account needed. Going for a long trip on train or plane and can’t miss the action from Narcos, The Crown or Stranger Things? hit the download button and watch the content without an internet connection.
The download option is available with Netflix latest version of android and iOS mobile app. The feature is enabled by default in all plans at no extra cost. Once you have updated the app, you can select “Available for Download” from the menu to find the complete list of TV shows and movies available to download. Unfortunately, not all TV shows and movies are available to watch offline. You can access all the downloaded TV shows and movies from the “My Downloads” section of the menu.
You can also find the downloadable content by spotting the “download icon or arrow” next to the episode or movie title. Clicking on it will begin the download, which will be then available for offline viewing. If you are in a hurry to download the entire TV show then, you can also select the download video quality. There are two options to choose from – Standard quality that’s slightly lower video quality, takes up less storage space on your phone or SD card and takes less time to download. While the higher quality option offers the best quality for the videos, but require more storage space and take much more time to download.
Do note that the downloaded media content will stay forever on your device, until you decide to clean things up. You can delete the downloaded TV shows and movies from the “My Downloads” section. You can also delete all downloads at once from the “App Settings” page.
Google’s YouTube also has a similar feature where you can download YouTube videos for offline viewing. If you are using mobile internet connection for downloading, then YouTube has got the Smart Offline feature. Which only downloads the videos at late night hours when the telecom operators offer a discount on data usage. Recently Google also launched another app called YouTube Go for faster download even on slow internet connection.