Watch YouTube videos offline – if you’re in India, Indonesia, or the Philippines

Today, Indian internet users got a much-awaited goodie from YouTube – a new feature to take a video offline to watch later. Google had promised this months ago when it launched its affordable Android One smartphones in India.

Video streaming is an expensive indulgence in India because of unreliable download speeds and the high fees telecom operators charge for overshooting mobile data plans. This new feature will allow users to download a movie over wi-fi at home, and then watch it offline on a mobile device during the long commute to work, or watch their favorite videos over and over again for up to 48 hours after downloading them just once – without having to stream it repeatedly. They simply have to sign in, pick the video they want to watch later, and tap the offline button to download it.

Besides India, the feature is available on Android devices in Indonesia and the Philippines too.

The catch is that not all videos on YouTube will have the offline feature, which comes into effect three months after Tech in Asia had first wrote about this.

John Harding, YouTube’s vice president of engineering, told the media that the move was to “help people move past the challenges of data connection, speed and cost to enjoy a smooth, buffer-free version of YouTube.”

See: 5 reasons why Google’s Android One is a game-changer in budget smartphones