It’s safe to say that the most desirable commodities in the Stuff offices are connectivity and space. If we don’t have the capacity to stream suspicious amounts of Rick and Morty in one sitting, we need loads of space in the shape of megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes, to store content to consume later on. Which may or may not include Rick and Morty. And this little treasure…
Netflix gets the need for internet speed. Netflix knows the storage struggle is real. And they’ve decided that they want to help you manage your connectivity and storage anxiety with the launch of Smart Downloads.
The Netflix app is now able to automatically delete downloaded videos once you’ve watched them, freeing up some of that precious mobile device storage. Better yet, it’ll automatically download the next one too, so you’ll always be ready to continue your binge. If you save more than one video at a time, the following will happen:
Imagine that you’ve downloaded the first three episodes of a new series (your call, we won’t judge), and you finish watching S01: E01. Smart Downloads will delete the watched episode, and automatically replace it with the fourth — making sure that you still have three episodes to watch when the need arises.
The feature is available on Android devices running the latest version of the Netflix app — we haven’t had the chance to test it with our own favourite series yet, but will update if we find it helpful. It appears that Smart Downloads be enabled by default, but you can turn it off from the app’s setting menu or download section.
Keep in mind the feature only works over WiFi, so it won’t be much help if you’re bingeing on the go, unless you plan ahead and line up a few episodes of Happy! (because Nick Sacks is literally the best IRL superhero) before you get on that plane, train or automobile. Even then, you’ll only see new episodes pop up once you get back under the WiFi umbrella.
Another thing — Netflix has only made the intelligent download feature available on Android at present, on both mobile phones and tablets. There’s no word on when it’ll arrive on iOS but we’re guessing that ‘soon’ is all we’re going to get when asking about an Apple device timeline. [Update: iOS Smart downloads are finally available! Happy bingeing]
