YouTube introduces offline videos for select African markets

Following the Android One / Infinix HOT 2 release in Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Morocco, Google has also announced that they will be enabling a save-for-later feature on the YouTube mobile app. This feature will enable users to download videos when they are online and play them at a later time. The feature is available through a download button on the latest YouTube app.

To access the feature, one needs to download to the latest version of the YouTube app, and hit the download button during video play. To access the offline videos, under the user menu just select “offline” and the list of videos downloaded will appear. The videos are however only available offline for 48 hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn1yG6jyTAM

To protect the videos, maintain copyright and avoid distribution, YouTube has used a series of encryption techniques on the downloaded file that can only be decoded  by the app for now.

We have also tried to enable this feature with the latest update on YouTube, but it seems to be unavailable. Though not mentioned, it could be that this feature will only be available in the markets selected for the Android One roll out. Other markets that already have this feature and google Maps offline include India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

We hope Android One, or at least Offline videos come to Zimbabwe soon.

image credit: bgr.in