Currently, downloads stop whenever the screen turns off or the app is moved to the background. This makes it very difficult to download larger files unless I keep the screen on and Plex open in the foreground, which is inconvenient and drains the battery. It would be extremely helpful if Plex could…

Seconding this. Sitting at the airport right now with a displeased wife who queued up some downloads and (reasonably) expected that to do the job. At the very least, there needs to be a big bold warning on the screen.

Are you sure this isn’t just a bug with downloads?? I’d hate to need to do a feature request for something that should be a given in the first place… @tenaku You should click the vote button, simply stating that you second this does nothing.

Not sure about ios but downloads does work in the background on Android. I queued an entire season of a show, turned off my screen and left it for 10 minutes. Came back and the lock screen showed only a few files had downloaded but opening the app i see everything finished. For ios I remember looki…

Unless it’s a battery killing feature of a device specific flavor os Android, it doesn’t seem like this works. Transcoding happens (which is both not a function of the device as it’s handled on the server, and a real irritation in that it causes downloaded content to balloon - 10x to 20x the size of…

The thing is - we have implemented this in some manner on both Android and iOS. Now - this is not me stating that it will work in all instances for every person checking it out, but we did some pretty decent research on how backgrounding works on both platforms before building this up for how it exi…

iPhone Air, iOS 26, latest Plex app. Can confirm background downloads do work with screen off. If you open the app while it’s still downloading then the progress bar will be paused for a moment and then catch up.

Background downloads are not working for me on iOS. If I go to a different app the download process is either killed or paused. Client version 2025.31.1 (1461) // Server Version 1.42.2.10156.

Not working iOS 26. And what is worse, there is no resume option, it has to redownload everything.

Not working on Xiaomi pad 6 android. If the screen is on, downloads are on. If screen is off, they stop. Two files download simultaneously. Somehow screen off pauses downloads and they aren’t treated on priority on screen awake. Two fresh downloads are selected.

Feature Request – Allow Downloads to Continue in Background / Screen Off

Feature Suggestions

tom80H October 1, 2025, 7:34pm 4

I wonder in what exact setup and context you’re experiencing this. There’s been another suggestion which had been closed as implemented (with confirmations from users that it’s now working for them).

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iOS allows background downloads, why doesn’t Plex enable it Feature Suggestions ios-legacy , downloads	30	1107	June 11, 2025
Android app does not download when the screen is off Plex Players android-mobile	1	42	October 28, 2025
Background downloading on iOS Feature Suggestions ios-legacy , downloads	2	163	September 8, 2022
Bug? Unable to download large audio files Plex Labs plexamp	4	111	November 2, 2020
Plex needs to improve the downloads feature Plex Players android-mobile-legacy , ios-legacy , downloads	123	2770	October 24, 2023

Feature Request – Allow Downloads to Continue in Background / Screen Off

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