I regularly use Disney+ on my phone when traveling to stay entertained. While the experience is great by default, there are various ways I’ve made it even better thanks to the app’s native features. If you want to use Disney+ on mobile or tablet, here’s what you need to do.
Download for Offline Viewing
The most important feature you need to know about is the ability to download movies and shows for offline viewing. It means that you don’t need to use your mobile data or rely on spotty public Wi-Fi connections. Unfortunately, it’s not available if you’re using the ad-supported plan.
To download something, first head to its overview page. For movies, tap “Download” beneath the “Play” button. For shows, stay on the “Episodes” tab and tap either the download button next to “Season” (to download all available episodes) or the button next to an individual episode.
Once the download has finished, it’s available to view and manage from the persistent Downloads tab on the bottom menu.
Set the Download Quality
Download quality is set to “Standard” by default, which offers the quickest downloads and requires the least storage. If better image quality is more important than those two factors, you can adjust this to either “Medium” or “High”.
To do that, tap your profile picture in the bottom-right and go to App Settings > Download Quality.
Choose the Download Location
If your phone supports the use of external storage (like a microSD card), you can store the downloads on that rather than the internal storage—which is handy, as the latter gets chewed up quickly.
To choose your download location, select your profile picture in the bottom-right and go to App Settings > Download Location.
Limit Data Usage
If you have a Wi-Fi or mobile data cap, it’s best to be conservative with your Disney+ data usage. There are a few settings to help you with this.
To begin, select your profile picture from the bottom menu and tap App Settings.
The “Video Playback” section refers to streaming through Wi-Fi or mobile data, rather than anything downloaded. Here you can choose to “Stream Over Wi-Fi Only” and customize the “Wi-Fi Data Usage” to either “Automatic” (2 GB/hour) or “Save Data” (0.6 GB/hour).
You can also select an option for “Mobile Data Usage” between “Automatic” (reduce buffering, variable quality) and “Save Data” (lower quality, less data). This won’t apply if you’re only streaming on Wi-Fi, though.
Finally, back on the App Settings page in the “Downloads” section, toggle “Download Over Wi-Fi Only” if you want to conserve mobile data usage.
Cast to Other Devices
Watching on a phone is fine when commuting, but it can’t beat the big screen. Disney+ supports both Chromecast and AirPlay, so you can wirelessly stream from your phone to a TV. It’s perfect when you’re staying away from home.
It’s as simple as playing something on the Disney+ app, selecting the Chromecast or AirPlay icon in the top-right, and then choosing your streaming device.
Make a Watchlist
Your Disney+ watchlist is a collection of shows and movies that you want to watch. Finding something new to watch can sometimes take a while, so I like to make sure that my watchlist is populated before I travel.
To add something to your watchlist, navigate to its overview page and tap the “Watchlist” button. To then access your watchlist, tap your profile picture at the bottom and select “Watchlist”.
Disney+ is great for viewing on the go, but I wish it would nab the smart downloads function from Netflix. You may not know this Netflix feature exists, but it automatically downloads the next episode in a series along with content it thinks you’ll like. It’s great for keeping offline viewing well stocked.
