How to Watch Hulu Offline

This guide will show you how to watch Hulu offline. Learn how to record Hulu TV shows instead of downloading them to your computer so you can upload them to your iPhone, iPad or Android device to watch while you travel. This allows you to watch Hulu offline when you don’t have a connection to save data or for streaming like on an airplane.

To download Hulu shows or Hulu Plus shows on your computer, you must first download a program called PlayOn; This program allows you to use PlayOn Recording option to save Hulu shows on your computer for offline watching.

To use the PlayOn Recorder tool, you must upgrade to PlayOn Plus, which is $29.99 per year or $49.99 for life.

The biggest obstacle for some users is that you need a Windows computer to use the PlayOn tool to download Hulu videos to your computer. There is no Mac PlayOn app.

Note that when you use the PlayOn Registration feature, it will embed your IP address and user information in every file. This is because the tool is designed to allow you to save programming for personal use, not sharing.

How to Watch Hulu Offline

To get started, you need to download PlayOn. Sign up for a free account and then choose to upgrade to PlayOn Plus, which unlocks the PlayOn Registration tool.

Once this is enabled, you will need to add your Hulu login to the app under the channels section. If you don’t already have a Hulu account, sign up for one. If you don’t have Hulu Plus, you can use a free account.

Select Channels in Settings and enter your Hulu login. This is how you will open the option to see Hulu shows.

Sign in to watch Hulu offline.

You can search or browse shows on Hulu on the main PlayLater recording screen. Once you find the show you want, click Save and the software will start downloading the TV show. You can also subscribe to your favorite shows to automatically save whenever a new episode comes online, so you can watch Hulu shows offline without manually saving them.

The download is how you can think of it and is a way of explaining what’s going on, but in reality the software part is playing and recording. Even if you have a fast Internet connection, this will take as long as the show. This means that a 30-minute show will take about 30 minutes to save on your computer.

You can easily see the Hulu recordings you’ve saved.

You can set the tool to record several programs one after the other; this is useful for setting recordings to occur overnight when you would otherwise not be using the computer.

The PlayOn PlayLater app will show you the progress of your recordings, and when complete you can transfer them to your iPhone, iPad, another computer or an Android device.

There were occasional issues with our testing where you might need to re-record a show, but overall this is a reliable tool. In general, the quality of the videos you record is at or close to streaming.

Is It Legal to Record Hulu Shows?

Before you save a Hulu show on your computer to watch Hulu offline, you need to decide if it’s something you want to do.

Hulu terms and conditions specifically state that you may not “copy, download, stream capture, reproduce, reproduce, archive, distribute, upload, directly or through any device, software, website, web-based service, or otherwise. Unless expressly authorized in writing by Hulu Publish, modify, translate, publish, perform, display, sell, transmit or retransmit Content.

If Hulu catches you using such a tool to watch Hulu offline, they may close your account. Tom’s Guide It offers a closer look at the legality of using such a tool to pan your Hulu viewing in space.