How to make sure you always have content to watch offline on your smartphone

Streaming services, whatever they are, almost all offer to download content manually or automatically. Here’s how it works.

Storing music, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, and TV shows in the cloud is a great idea. Everything is accessible from any device at any time and does not take up space on the corresponding device. That being said, when you are not logged in, you have no content available. Fortunately, almost all modern streaming services offer the option to download content, whether automatically or not.

Enabling these automatic downloads can be very useful in many situations. Especially when you need to suddenly take a trip, or when your internet suddenly fails you. Below are three apps that offer such features. Others, like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Video, or Disney+ allow for manual downloads, but smarter features should be coming soon.

Enable Smart Downloads on Netflix

Netflix Smart Downloads lets you save movies and TV shows in the background so they’re ready to watch whenever you want. To do this, click the “Downloads”button at the bottom of the mobile application interface, then select “Startupload”. You can turn on two options: “Download Next Episode”which does just that, and “Custom Downloads”. Netflix will then download a selection of content that you might like.

The settings below allow you to manage the storage allocated to these automatic downloads. You can even set it on a per-profile basis. You can also see how much storage is left on your phone and how much Netflix is ​​using.

All your downloads, manual or automatic, can be found in the Downloads tab in the app. You can delete a download using the pencil icon, then “Delete”or by clicking the download icon to the right of each content.

How to allow YouTube to automatically download recommended videos

To use this feature on Youtube, you must subscribe to YouTube Premium for 11.99 euros per month. After that, you will have a “Download”button next to the video in the app. If you don’t have time to manage these downloads manually, YouTube can do it for you. Click on your profile icon, then “Settings”and “Background”and “Downloads”to finally activate smart downloads. You can also select Download Quality to set the default quality.

YouTube explains that selected videos are “recommended”to you based on your habits, and the list is updated every seven days.

Downloaded videos can be found in the app’s Library tab, then Downloads. You can view and delete them as needed, but there is no way to view used and/or remaining storage.

Smart music download from YouTube

YouTube Music can also download content for you. To do this, you’ll need the paid YouTube Music offer for €9.99 per month. You will find download buttons throughout the app and you can tap to save playlists, albums or songs. Click “Library”then “Downloads”to find all your downloaded music.

On the Downloads screen, tap the gear icon and turn on Smart Downloads (Android) or Download Mixtape Offline (iOS). With the slider, you can set the number of songs and storage used.

The standalone mixtape is displayed as a playlist on Android and iOS, but the song limit (up to 100 tracks) can only be set on iOS. With this feature on Android, you can download up to 500 songs. All these albums and tracks will not be in the offline mixtape, but in Downloads, in the Library.

Podcasts

The most reputable podcast apps download new episodes of your podcasts. For example, in the Pocket Casts app, tap the gear icon on the podcast page and turn on automatic downloads.

If you prefer the Overcast app on iOS, you’ll find this option on the podcast page and then tap Settings, Download, and Startup. This way the process will be automated and you can even send them to personalized playlists.

If you’re using the native Apple Podcasts app, this option is behind the button with three small dots in the top right corner, and then in Settings and Automatic Downloads. You can select all new episodes, no episodes, or in-between episodes based on a certain number of episodes or their release date.