The new Downloads, and associated Offline mode is…not good.
Firstly, I deleted all of the “migrated” content since none of it had art, nor could I easily play it (more on that later). There’s no way to select multiple items, which made deleting >150 TV shows very annoying.
Second, I struggled a lot trying to get the downloads to work. After looking at the logs, I saw it was trying to go to the Plex Direct URL, even though I was on the same IP network as the server. I had my port forward off, so it wouldn’t work. Once I turned the forwarding on, downloading worked… over the LAN. Makes no sense whatsoever how on the same lan, which according to the logs it saw because it tested the connection, but still needed that external name to work.
Thirdly, once the content was downloaded, it’s awful to use. I tried it by putting my iPad into airplane mode. The interface didn’t recognize it was offline…I had to close and restart Plex. After doing so…I was let down. The only way to see content is in the Download section. In the old version I could go to a TV Series and Season and play an episode. This is just one long, seemingly unorganized, list of content. This is awful. It needs to have the same interface as if it were connected to the server, but only showing downloaded content. Even getting to Downloads section was clumsy because my profile pic didn’t load and where it should have e been in the top right was just black. I tapped around until the menu opened and it worked. Very poor experience.
Same here. The offline content experience in the “newly reimagined and redesigned Plex app” is pretty bad. You can’t even browse the offline content by TV show or season, it’s just a list of all downloaded episodes. For folks like me that like to keep entire TV shows offline for my kid, this is pretty bad.
Plex please fix! Same issues. 5 year old’s offline content. Struggling to use. Please put the TV episodes back into shows. Add ability to delete entire shows.
Another nice feature would be the ability to sync a playlist to downloads then we can just add the content to a playlist from any device that will sync with the iPad for offline use. This should include removing content no longer on the playlist and acquiring the new. This will make the pre trip download scramble much smoother.
Same experience here — really disappointed with the new iPad app, especially around downloads.
1. Downloads – Missing Smart Options
The new download functionality has lost a lot of useful features:
No way to download only unwatched episodes anymore.
Can’t set how many episodes to keep offline.
No control over when watched content gets deleted.
These were crucial for offline use during travel. The new approach feels very limited.
2. Managing Downloads Is Tedious
Deleting downloads is now unnecessarily complicated — three taps per item, and no way to select multiple episodes. That’s really inefficient, especially if you’re regularly updating your offline library.
3. Quality Settings Lack Clarity
The new download quality labels (“Low,” “Medium,” “High”) are vague and don’t give enough info. Only “Original” really makes sense. Would be great to see bitrate or resolution included again for clarity.
All of this is especially frustrating because the previous version already handled these things really well. Hope this feedback helps push some of these features back into the app.
I just wanted to further comment that the lack of any organisation of the downloads is a huge oversight in my opinion and I really hope Plex re-add the segregation of shows vs movies and allow shows to collapse to tidy things up.
On a positive note, after some initial frustrations, with downloads not downloading, I find performance significantly better…
Yeah, the downloads section is terrible, I can’t understand why they went back on a system which was working well (especially after all the trouble we’ve had with downloads over the years).
The new app is catastrophic. I’ve had a lifetime plex pass for over 15 years now, but I’m really starting to look at Jellyfin.
I came here hoping I was missing something. We’ve about to take a family road trip, and I’m so utterly frustrated with this “new” design. It’s garbage. I can already tell that my partner and I will have to constantly be assisting our child on this trip when they want to watch something.
It also looks like there is no autoplay on the episodes section so if they watch an episode of a show when it’s over they’ll have to go back and select the next episode they want to watch.
I’m literally dreading this upcoming road trip thanks to this update.
Is this thread screaming into a void or is there actually a chance that someone with the ability to action on any feedback seeing these posts?
Has there been any acknowledgment from the team on fixing the (iPad OS) downloads & offline changes?
Downloads not being organized by TV show or season, not being able to download a season in full, not being able to bulk delete if cleaning out download section (different than delete after watching). I’m a fairly patient person and download only when necessary, but I manage my son’s iPad and have plenty of things on there ready for him when necessary. Having to manually manage every single thing is very tedious. It’s also confusing for him to navigate, having to read a title in a small display or looking at the S00E00 before the title name to have a sense as to what season he may be on with a certain show.
Don’t mind waiting, but not giving user (and Plex Pass users) any update is frustrating.
I check the forums every once and a while, and, nothing. They are pulling a Sonos with this app update IMHO. While it works fine for MOST people, there’s a non-small group that uses features that have gotten worse.
Same! I loaded up my kids iPad for a long haul flight. She was not impressed. The interface is very poor. Just a load of chunky icons, no sort, no filter, no grouping. Previously I feel like the interface pretty much functioned as per normal, but the only content that was viewable was the downloaded items. This is exactly as it should be - no UX change, just limited content. My 5yo could deal with this, as could my wife. Plex Devs, please devote time to this feature. Thank you kindly :o)
I’ll add my voice to the chorus of complaints about this issue. The #1 reason I started using Plex and paid for a lifetime pass was to be able to download my content and view it offline. That just isn’t functional for me anymore.
Others have identified the issues: the list of downloaded content is hidden, not presented clearly; it’s a mess with no organization; and it doesn’t track what you have and haven’t viewed and doesn’t show you what’s next up.
I’m deeply disappointed and very much want the downloaded content view on iPad at least to revert back to the way it used to be. This is a massive decrease in functionality for me.
