How to download Netflix movies and shows onto your phone or tablet

Photo Illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images

Netflix remains the most popular video streaming service around. But as convenient as streaming over the internet is, sometimes you need to watch videos without internet — if you're planning to fly on a plane, visit a remote location, or otherwise be away from Wi-Fi, you might want something saved to your phone or tablet for offline playback. 

Netflix makes it easy to download video to a mobile device for just these kinds of situations. Here's how to do it.

Important: You can only download Netflix titles on smartphones and some tablets, like the iPad. You can't download them onto your computer, game console, or television.

1. Open the Netflix app and find the movie or TV show you want to download, and then tap it to open its details page. If you're downloading a show, also find the episode you want.

2. Tap the download button, which is shaped like a downward-pointing arrow. The button will change to indicate it's downloading, and after a few moments (depending on the speed of your internet connection and the length of the video) it'll finish. You can tell it's been downloaded because you'll see an icon representing your mobile device instead of the Download button.

William Antonelli/Insider

Movies only have a single download button, while a TV series will generally have a separate download button for each episode. Also, note that not every video on Netflix can be downloaded — due to licensing issues, you may find that there's no download button available for a movie you want to save.

Once you download a movie to your iPhone, iPad, or Android device, you don't need to do anything special to watch it. Just return to the movie or TV show you want to watch and tap it to play as usual.

If you're not connected to the internet and can't load the show or movie's page, just tap Downloads at the bottom of the screen to immediately see a list of all the downloaded movies and TV shows stored on your device.

William Antonelli/Insider

In addition, you can tap "Downloads" at the bottom of the screen to immediately see a list of all downloaded movies and TV shows stored on your mobile device.

After you've downloaded some movies to your mobile device, you might eventually want to remove them to save space. There are two ways to do this:

• To delete downloaded videos one at a time, go to the movie or series' details page and tap the mobile device icon that tells you the video's been downloaded. In the pop-up menu that appears, tap Delete Download.
• To delete all your downloaded videos at once, go to the Downloads page and tap the pencil icon in the top-right. On an iPhone or iPad, tap the red X icon next to any title you want to delete; on an Android, select the title you want to delete and then tap the trashcan icon in the top-right.

William Antonelli/Insider

All Netflix downloads will also expire after a certain amount of time — the exact time will differ depending on the title.

See Also:

• How to add music to an iMovie project on mobile or desktop
• How to add text to an iMovie to give your video titles, subtitles, or other dramatic flourishes
• How to type on a PDF in 5 different ways

SEE ALSO: The best tablets you can buy