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Downloads
Save movies, shows, music, and books onto your device and play them with no internet connection. You can keep the original file, or let the server shrink it first so it takes less space.
- Open a movie, episode, series, season, collection, album, audiobook or book.
- Tap Download. On a series, season or collection, Moonfin first asks What to download: all of the episodes or movies, or only the unwatched ones. A series also offers Auto-download new episodes there (see below).
- Pick a quality if asked (see the next section), or let the default apply.
- Progress shows on the item itself and on the Active Downloads tab of the Downloads screen. You can keep using the app, and downloads carry on in the background.
The default quality and the folder are under Settings > Playback & SyncPlay > Offline Downloads.
Before a download starts, Moonfin checks that it fits, both in the free space on the device and under the Storage Limit if you set one. If it won't fit, the download is refused with a message saying so, Not enough storage with how much it needs and how much is free, or Storage limit reached, instead of failing halfway.
While a download runs, its notification names the show and episode, and on Android it shows a progress bar. On iPhone and iPad, Moonfin asks for permission to send notifications the first time you download something.
- Everything you saved is under Downloads in the navigation bar. The entry only shows once something is saved, and it goes away again when the last download is deleted. You can hide it for good under Personalization > Navigation > Show Downloads Button.
- The Downloads screen has a tab per kind of media you've saved (Movies, TV Shows, Episodes, Music, Books) next to All, plus Active Downloads for what's still transferring or queued. The buttons at the top search your downloads, and the more menu sorts them by size, name or date added or lets you Select items to delete several at once. A bar shows how much space each kind takes, including images and the database.
- Downloaded items play from there without any connection, with the same controls as streaming. Episodes group under their series, and a series opens its own screen with the episodes split by season.
- Each item has a menu with Play (Read for a book), Play from start once you've started it, Go to details and Delete download. A series has Open show, Play next unwatched, Go to details, and a delete for all of its episodes.
- To remove one, open it and tap Delete Downloaded Files (Delete Downloaded on an album), or delete it from the Downloads screen. Downloaded games have their own list under Playback & SyncPlay > Downloaded Games.
- Deleting the app deletes its downloads. On iPhone, offloading the app keeps them, just like the rest of its documents.
On an iPhone, iPad or Android phone or tablet, Moonfin can keep a series topped up on its own. It isn't offered on TVs or desktop.
- Open a series and tap Download.
- Choose Auto-download new episodes, then pick the quality new episodes should use.
From then on, episodes that reach your server after you started following download by themselves, oldest first, up to the number of unwatched episodes you want to keep. The episodes that were already there are yours to download by hand, All unwatched episodes being the quick way. To stop, open the same menu and choose Stop auto-download.
The rules live under Settings > Playback & SyncPlay > Offline Downloads > Automatic downloads:
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Enable automatic downloads | Pauses every followed series when off, without forgetting them | On |
| Keep unwatched episodes | How many unwatched episodes of a series stay downloaded at once: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 or All | 3 |
| Delete downloaded episodes | Removes auto-downloaded episodes once you've watched them: Never, Right after watching, 1 day after watching or 1 week after watching | Never |
| Check in the background | Lets the system check for new episodes while Moonfin is closed | On |
| Check now | Checks every followed series right away and shows how the last check went |
Below those, Followed series lists each series with its quality and its last check, and the cross next to one stops following it.
Advanced: when checks run
- Moonfin checks when it connects to your server, when you come back to the app, when the server reports new or changed items, and when you press Check now.
- In the background, iPhone and iPad use Background App Refresh and Android uses WorkManager, so the system decides when a check runs. If Background App Refresh is off for Moonfin, or Android restricts its background use, the setting tells you.
- Background checks only download series set to Original. A smaller quality needs the server to keep converting for the whole transfer, which a background slot can't promise, so those series download while Moonfin is open. They're marked Downloads only while Moonfin is open.
- With WiFi-Only Downloads on, checks wait for Wi-Fi.
- If new episodes don't fit, Moonfin sends a notification saying so instead of queuing them. Free up space or raise the Storage Limit.
- Only episodes Moonfin downloaded automatically are ever deleted, and never the one you're watching. Specials and episodes that haven't aired are skipped.
Original downloads the exact file from your server. It gives the best quality and the biggest file.
The other presets ask the server to convert the file to a smaller one before it downloads:
| Preset | Resolution | Approximate size per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Original | Source | Varies |
| High | 1080p | ~1.8 GB |
| Medium | 720p | ~950 MB |
| Low | 480p | ~490 MB |
| Mobile | 360p | ~250 MB |
Books and audiobooks always download in their original format.
Advanced: what the presets encode
Transcoded downloads use HEVC (H.265) video and AAC audio in an MP4 container. Compared with H.264, this gives files roughly 50% smaller at the same perceived quality.
| Preset | Video bitrate | Audio bitrate |
|---|---|---|
| High | 4 Mbps | 192 kbps |
| Medium | 2 Mbps | 128 kbps |
| Low | 1 Mbps | 96 kbps |
| Mobile | 500 kbps | 64 kbps |
Downloads work on phones, tablets, desktop, and Android TV, which includes Google TV and Fire TV. Apple TV can't download.
On Android TV, the download buttons are off by default. Turn them on under Settings > Playback & SyncPlay > Offline Downloads > Enable offline downloads. A TV that has removable storage can also save to it.
In the web app, Download hands the file straight to your browser, which saves it like any other file download. It doesn't show up in Moonfin's Downloads screen and doesn't play offline inside the app.
Downloaded items play with the same controls as streamed ones. Your resume position is tracked, and downloaded subtitles work offline. Saved episodes group under their series on the Downloads screen.
To download subtitles alongside your media, see the User Guide.
Advanced: the download queue
Downloads run through a concurrency queue rather than all starting at once. Anything waiting shows a queued state instead of a stalled bar.
A transcoded download also shows the server's own transcode progress and an ETA, read from the transcode job the client started. So you can see the server working before the first byte arrives. An Original quality download shows its transfer rate and the time left instead.
A transcoded download that gets interrupted can't resume and starts over from the beginning. Original quality picks up where it stopped.
Downloads are organized into folders automatically:
Movies/{Title (Year)}/
TV/{Series}/Season NN/
Music/{Artist}/{Album}/
Audiobooks/{Author}/{Collection}/
Books/{BookName}/
On desktop and Android you can pick a different folder under Offline Downloads > Download Location. Android can also use Save to Downloads folder, which puts the files in Downloads/Moonfin where other apps can see them.
Advanced: exact storage paths
Android saves under the app's external storage directory, Android/data/org.moonfin.androidtv/files/Moonfin/. External storage gives more space than internal app storage and doesn't count against the internal storage quota. If external storage isn't available, the app falls back to its internal documents directory.
iOS saves under the app's Documents directory, Documents/Moonfin/. This is the standard sandboxed location for user content. Files there are included in iCloud and iTunes backups by default and survive app updates.
Desktop saves under the application support directory by default. You can change this in settings.
On Android and desktop, a download in progress is kept in a hidden .incoming folder inside the download folder and moved into place when it finishes. Keeping it on the same drive makes that final move instant rather than a second copy of the file.
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