Netflix is an application with an automatic download option. Photo: David Nield / Gizmodo
Having all your music, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, and TV shows stored in the cloud is a good idea – you can access them from any device and free up storage on your gadgets. The only time there is a problem is when you can’t connect to the cloud – your internet connection can’t, or you can’t receive a strong signal from your mobile or you’re traveling.
Almost every playback app out there has a safety net, in the form of an offline cache feature that allows you to temporarily store certain content on your phone, just in case you disconnect from the web. What you may not have noticed is that a good handful of apps can now do this automatically, saving locally things you’ll probably like.
While it’s not exactly the same as choosing movies and playlists yourself, activating these automatic offline features can be very helpful when you’re a little early; maybe your router has failed, or you have to leave unexpectedly on a trip, or whatever. is. Here’s how to set up these features in advance.
We have included three applications that include this type of feature. The option for “smart” downloads has not yet reached others such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus; they all offer manually-activated downloads, but hopefully they can drive smarter downloads in the not-too-distant future, to make listening and offline viewing even easier.
Enabling smart downloads on Netflix
Netflix Credit, which not only allows you to cache movies and programs manually, just tap the Download button on any page in the list, but it also includes a smart download feature that will save for you. movies and TV series in the background, so they are ready to be released from the phone whenever needed.
Tap the Downloads button at the bottom of the mobile interface app, and then choose Smart Downloads. There are two toggle switches you can turn on: enable Download the next episode, and the app will do just that, caching the next episode of the programs you’re currently watching. Enable downloads for you and Netflix will download a selection of things you think you’ll like based on its recommendation algorithm.
Screenshot: Netflix
The settings below allow you to decide how much of your phone’s storage is spent on Smart Downloads on Netflix, and you can even split it by profile. Below, you can see how much space is left on your phone and how much Netflix takes up.
All your downloads, whether manually or intelligently enabled, can be found on the Downloads tab of the app. If there’s something that Netflix has saved that you don’t like, you can get rid of it by tapping the pencil icon (top right) and choosing what you want to delete, or by tapping the downloaded icons to the right of each item. .
How to allow YouTube to automatically download recommended videos
In order to download YouTube videos to your phone, you must be a paid member of the YouTube Premium Club, which will cost you $ 12 a month. Once you’ve delivered your cash, you’ll see the download buttons next to the videos in the app.
If you don’t have the time or decision to download videos manually, YouTube will do it for you. Tap your profile picture (top right), choose Settings, Wallpapers & Downloads, and then turn on Smart Downloads. You can also choose the download quality to set a default video quality level (which, of course, affects the storage required for your clips).
Screenshot: YouTube
All YouTube says about the videos you choose to download is that they are “recommended” videos, so they will be the same ones that will be sent to you as you browse the app. The list is updated every seven days.
To find your downloaded videos in the YouTube app, tap Library and then Downloads. You can watch (and if necessary delete) videos from here, but there is no option to set how much storage space is allocated to the feature. When we tried it, 10 videos were saved locally.
Smart downloads to YouTube Music
To be no less than YouTube, YouTube Music can also queue you content offline, without you having to choose what you want. YouTube Music has a free level, but you have to be on the payment plan ($ 10 a month) to download music to your phone to listen to it offline.
You’ll find small download buttons (arrows pointing down) at various points in the YouTube Music mobile interface, and you can tap any of them to save playlists, albums, and songs to your device. Tap Library and then Downloads to see all this music stored in one place.
Screenshot: YouTube Music
You may not want to worry about choosing music manually, in which case the app will do it for you. On the downloads screen, tap the gear icon (top right) and turn on the Smart Downloads (Android) toggle switch or Download a mixed tape offline (iOS). With the sliders below, you can choose how many songs and how much storage is used for the function.
This different approach is a bit strange: the offline mixtape appears as a playlist on Android and iOS, but its maximum song limit (up to 100 songs) can only be set on iOS. On Android, you can save up to 500 songs (including offline mixtape) using the smart download feature. Not all of these albums and songs will be on the offline mixed tape, but they can all be found on the Downloads to Library screen.
Podcasts
Most podcast players worthy of the name will automatically download new podcast episodes to which you subscribe, if you wish. In the Pocket Casts app, for example, you can tap the setup gear icon on a podcast page, and then turn on the automatic download switch to download new episodes as they appear.
In the meantime, if you’re on the popular Overcast podcast player for iOS, you can find the relevant option by going to a podcast list page and then tapping Settings, downloading and downloading automatically. It saves you the hassle of saving and storing new episodes automatically, and you can even send them to custom playlists on Overcast.
Screenshot: Pocket Casts
You may be using the default Apple Podcasts app that comes with your iPhone, in which case you can find the option you need by opening a podcast, tapping the three dots in the upper right, and choosing Setup and Download automatically: you can choose all new episodes, no chapters, or at some intermediate point based on a specific number of episodes or when they were published.
Whichever podcast player you prefer, you should find a similar option somewhere, which means you’ll never be surprised to hear something when you don’t have an internet connection. It’s a good idea to have several podcasts set up to download them automatically, just for variety.