Netflix just made offline viewing a whole lot simpler.
The company announced today a new feature called Downloads for You, which when enabled will automatically download shows and movies on your phone based on your preferences. And lest you fear that Netflix is going to eat up all your storage space, the tool also allows you control how much space you want to allocate to these titles.
After you opt in, the tool works by automatically downloading shows and movies when you’re connected to wifi. That means the next time you’re on the go or looking to kill some time, you can whip out your phone and already have titles ready for offline viewing. If and when travelling by plane is a thing again, I imagine this tool will be immensely useful for travel because you won’t have to worry about downloading titles ahead of time.
The tool builds on the Smart Downloads feature the company introduced a couple of years ago that automatically deletes and downloads watched and new episodes of a series on your device. Downloads for You is currently limited to Android, but Netflix says it will “be testing soon on iOS.”
To enable it, head to your Downloads settings menu and toggle on Downloads for You. From this screen, you’ll also be able to allocate storage for 1GB, 3GB, or 5GB. Netflix notes that this space is used for the automatically downloaded titles and will not include shows or movies you download manually.
Give us iOS plebs the good content tool too, Netflix!