Netflix Now Lets You Start Watching Unfinished Downloads, But Some Have To Wait

Netflix today announced a new feature that will likely prove very useful for those who often download the shows and movies they watch. The company has announced that users can now watch partially downloaded shows and movies offline. So, if you're like me and you tend to forget to download the stuff you want to watch until the last minute, you can still watch some of the episode or movie you'd been downloading and finish it when you have a stable internet connection again.

This new feature is also good for those on metered mobile data plans or who live in an area where mobile data is spotty and thus isn't a great option for streaming video. This has likely been an oft-requested feature from Netflix users, though up until this point, Netflix required you to download the whole episode or movie in question before you could begin watching it.

We actually first caught wind of this feature a little over a year ago, when references to offline viewing for incomplete downloads were first spotted in the Android version of the app. We're not sure why Netflix waited so long to roll it out on a larger scale, but regardless of the reason, it's finally happening today.

Unfortunately, this new feature isn't going live for everyone just yet. In its announcement today, Netflix said that for now only Android users can watch partially downloaded shows and movies offline. Testing for iOS users will begin sometime in the coming months, which means that a larger rollout to all iOS users could still be some time away.

Still, the hope is that the iOS testing period won't take very long since the feature is already live for Android users. We'll let you know when Netflix reveals more, so stay tuned.