Hulu offers thousands of great movies and TV shows with a constantly updated library of content. Until now, you required some kind of internet connection to connect to your Hulu account and watch content Well, as of October 2019, this is no longer the case.
Now you can download whatever you want to watch on your smartphone using the Hulu mobile app. Later, whether you have an Internet connection or not, you can watch this content wherever you are. This feature does not currently work on desktop devices when you visit the Hulu site.
This feature has several limitations. In this article, you will learn what it is, how to use the Hulu Offline View feature, and in what situations this feature can come in handy.
Upgrade to use Hulu Offline View
Hulu offers several different subscription plans, and not all of them include offline viewing.
The four plans for Hulu include:
- Hulu (ad-supported)
- Hulu (ad-free)
- Hulu + Live TV (ad-supported)
- Hulu + Live TV (no ads)
The only plans that support offline viewing are the two ad-free plans. When you read this article and decide you want to use Hulu’s offline viewing feature, you will need to upgrade to one of the ad-free plans.
How to use Hulu Offline View
If you haven’t updated the Hulu mobile app for a long time, you may not see the content download option. Visit the Google Play or Apple Store and be sure to run the app update.
Once updated, open the Hulu mobile app and navigate to the content you want to download.
On any TV show with multiple episodes, you’ll see a small download icon to the right of the episode title, next to the three-dot menu icon.
Once you select that, the download of that episode will begin. You will see the status of the loaded percentage as a circular line moving outside the loading icon.
It’s a little different for films. When you view a movie title, you will see a new link and a “Download” icon right below the “View Movie” button.
Selecting this movie will start downloading that movie.
Manage Hulu Offline View Downloads
In addition to the download status displayed on the download icons in the app itself, you can also see the download status of individual movies or TV shows in the notification area.
You can initiate multiple downloads at the same time. This means that if you have an upcoming trip and you know that you will be “disconnected from the network†for a while, connect to a good Wi-Fi network at home or at your local internet cafe and initiate as much content as possible. downloads as much as necessary.
The only limit on the number of content items you can download in Hulu is the capacity of your smartphone. Once the download is complete, you can manage all downloaded content in the Downloads area of ??the Hulu app.
To access it, click the Downloads button at the bottom of the Hulu app home page.
You will be taken to the Downloads page where you can find all of your downloaded content.
From here, you can simply click on any downloaded content to start playing it. This works regardless of whether you are connected to the Internet or a Wi-Fi network, as the content is streamed directly from your local device’s storage.
Not all Hulu content is downloadable
While watching, you may notice that some movies or TV shows do not have a download link or icon.
This is because not all content on Hulu can be downloaded. You can take a chance and just accidentally check the movies or TV shows you want to download. But there is a simpler way.
On the downloads page mentioned above, if you scroll down, you will see a “View What You Can Download” button by clicking which you can view a list of all the content on Hulu that you can download to your device.
Choosing this option will open a new area in the Hulu app where you can view all downloadable content.
As you can see, this area is divided into “Televisionâ€, “Moviesâ€, “Children†or “New Moviesâ€. Save time using this area and you are guaranteed to see something that you love, you can download it to your local device.
When to use Hulu Offline Show
Hulu’s offline viewing feature is ideal for a variety of situations you might find yourself in. Some of the more common ones are:
- When traveling with children, you can download children’s TV shows to their mobile devices before traveling.
- If you are camping away from internet access, you can download movies to watch at night in your tent.
- When traveling to another country and you want to save on data usage, download a lot of travel movies.
- Protect the security of your mobile device by watching movies in your hotel without having to connect to dangerous public Wi-Fi.
If you’re planning to upgrade to a No-Ad Hulu subscription, this might be a great reason to do so.
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