So you’re about to board a flight or hop in the car for what seems like the world’s longest journey. You also realize Wi-Fi won’t be available; how can you stream your favorite shows and movies on Netflix?
As it appears, it can always lead you on your favorite TV shows, or you can watch movies during long journeys, in other words, you can use Netflix to stream a lot of content on offline viewing. Yaaaaay! Read on for more info about how to download movies and tv shows from Netflix to your device. The following steps should work for iOS, Android, and Windows 10 users, despite being exclusive to Windows.
Getting your download on
Phase 1: Get up to date
Make sure your Netflix app is up-to-date first of all. If it’s not auto-updated for your device, just press the iOS app in the App Store (for versions 9.0 or later) or do the same for Android devices in Google Play Store. If you decide to use Netflix Windows 10, choose Store from the TaskBar, or Start Menu, then press the user icon. And then, choose Updates Search and the Netflix app begins to update.
Phase 2: Choose your download quality
Netflix provides two quality standards for streaming services: Standard and High. The latter tends to be full HD — around 720p and 1080p — while Netflix does not specify. Standard requires minimal space on your computer to download content faster, while High needs a little more space and patience. The amount of free storage you have and the type of device you are using will reflect on which option you choose. The normal mode looks fabulous on your new phone. And for your tablet or laptop, a higher resolution may be optimal.
To select, click the left menu icon (or lower right on Android) and scroll down to System Settings. Click or tap Download Video quality and pick your favorite quality under the heading Downloads. We will read more about the space required to download Netflix later in the guide.
Phase 3: Pick your poison
Not all on Netflix can be downloaded but by grouping them in a particular section called “Download-free,” the Company has made downloadable titles easy to find. In order to find that category, click or tap the Menu button similar to three horizontal lines and the penultimate option under the home section should be on Windows 10. Tap Downloads and pick Anything You Might Download in the available titles, whether you are using the Netflix iOS app or Android.
When looking for a particular title, you will notice that a downward arrow with a horizontal line is available to download it by the download icon.
Phase 4: Start download
Click the Download icon on the show or film you want to watch to start downloading. The Netflix platform allows you to specify which location you want to use for downloads. In the updated version of Netflix, you have the option of popping a microSD into your smartphone and setting it as your primary download path in the settings menu.
Phase 5: See your downloaded titles
The Downloads section will contain all Netflix content. Tap the menu button at the top-left corner of the application (or the bottom-right navigation bar). It is right above the Home section of the My Downloads folder. The title is immediately next to it as well as the amount of space it uses. Click or tap the video picture to play an episode.
How much space is required?
The resolution quality depends on just how much storage space the download requires. In order to give you a sense of the numbers, we continued to download the first episode of Stranger Things in regular and high quality.
The ritual is 94 minutes long. 542 MB of space is used for the Standard film, while the high-resolution version was 1.8 GB. The first Stranger Things episode takes 48 minutes and uses 197.1 MB of normal space and 310.1 MB of space at a high level. Before you pick between regular or high quality, it is always a good idea to see how much space on your device is available.
What is available?
Not all Netflix shows and films are available to download, mostly because some are left out of the list by the Netflix networks. However, there is a network that has provided all of its content offline — Netflix. All Netflix Originals, including Stranger Things, Norsemen, The Witcher, Cobra Kai, Lucifer, Umbrella Academy and Orange Is The New Black are available for download.
Included are its original titles on TV shows, such as Criminal Minds, Breaking Bad, The Good Place, Jane the Virgin, Schitt’s Creek and the Office. The original titles were also available at the time of writing. Uncut gems, Spider-Man: Triple Frontier, The Lorax, Dr Seuss’s, The Bounty Hunter, Pineapple Express, The Croods, Sin City and The Hateful Eight have also been added for download.
There are certain limits on how frequently you can download those series and how much time you can watch them. For example, in a single billing period, you cannot download more than three times the same episode of The Office. (Weird, we know.) You will also have to watch everything before it expires for offline streaming within a month from the download.
Not all resources are so generous for downloading content. Often, you’ll get trapped in a movie or show that can only be accessed once because of the Netflix licensing arrangement with the Netflix network. These titles expire after a week if you don’t pay attention to them and seem to vanish 48 hours after the first hit.
How do I delete titles?
You may want to get rid of this stuff, regardless of whether you have already watched downloaded titles or just want to space for other things, particularly because only 100 items can be downloaded at a time. Depending on how many contents you want to remove at once, there are two methods to do this.
Stage 1: Delete a single title
You can do so from the My Downloads section if you want to delete a single title. For example, in Windows 10 just launch the title, select Delete Download from the Download button. Click the edit icon of the pencil and pick the files to be removed.
Stage 2: Deleting all titles
Everything in the My Downloads section could be removed individually, and it’s a better way if you want to remove it all at once. Go to Settings, then just delete all downloads.