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6 Disney Plus Tricks for a More Magical Streaming Experience

Disney Plus subscribers can get discounts, request shows, make a watchlist and more.

Shelby Brown Editor II
Shelby Brown (she/her/hers) is an editor for CNET's services team. She covers tips and tricks for apps, operating systems and devices, as well as mobile gaming and Apple Arcade news. Shelby also oversees Tech Tips coverage. Before joining CNET, she covered app news for Download.com and served as a freelancer for Louisville.com.
Credentials
  • She received the Renau Writing Scholarship in 2016 from the University of Louisville's communication department.
Shelby Brown
4 min read
Disney Plus

You can watch all your favorite Disney Plus movies and shows on multiple devices.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Disney Plus offers an ever-growing library of classic Disney movies, Pixar shorts, documentaries and the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, as well as introducing us to Baby Yoda and other cultural icons through its marquee original series, The Mandalorian. The streaming service also offers Marvel shows like LokiWandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

The service's popularity has continued to grow since launch, with the Walt Disney Company reporting 129.8 million subscribers worldwide in the first quarter of 2022.

Here are a few tips you may not know to help you get the most out of your Disney Plus subscription. 

Read more: Disney Plus: Everything to Know, From Its New Movies to a Cheaper Tier

Get Disney Plus for free (or at least for less money)

Compared to its streaming peers, Disney Plus is priced pretty competitively at $8 a month, or $80 a year. But free is even better. Verizon Unlimited customers can each get six months of Disney Plus free.

babyyoda2

Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian might just be the cutest Star Wars character ever. 

Disney/Screenshot by Bonnie Burton/CNET

Disney also offers a bundle option where you can get Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus for $14 a month. To swap to the bundle deal or change your payments from monthly to annual in the Disney Plus app, just click your profile character icon and click Account. 

A cheaper, ad-supported subscription plan will also be available in the US in late 2022 and worldwide in 2023. Disney hasn't specified the new plan's price or launch date, or whether the price of its current, ad-free membership would be affected by the new option.

Read more: Canceling Disney Plus Isn't a Simple Swipe. Here's How to Quit

Download content

If you're going somewhere without Wi-Fi, you can download movies and episodes of shows from Disney Plus to watch on the go. To download a title, just select the downward arrow icon to start the process. You'll find anything you downloaded by tapping the same downward arrow icon in the toolbar at the bottom of the menu of the app.

There are no restrictions on how many times you can download a title or watch a title you've downloaded. You just need to access Disney Plus at least once a month. Essentially, you don't get to keep the movies you download if you get rid of Disney Plus. Deleting downloads is easy, too. 

Disney Plus

Disney Plus features all of your favorite Pixar films.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Make a watchlist

Disney Plus's watchlist option is a major benefit to those of us who found dozens of throwback movies and shows on the platform that we want to rewatch when we have the time. The watchlist works just like your Netflix queue. To add a title, just tap the + icon found next to the play button. You can find your list in the Disney Plus toolbar at the top of the screen, under Watchlist. 

Search more effectively

Disney continues to add new content to Disney Plus, and if you're not looking for a specific movie or show, the huge catalog available can be overwhelming. But the platform splits every film into categories, and everything is pretty easy to navigate. 

If you click the magnifying glass icon, it opens Disney Plus' Explore feature. Instead of scrolling, you can choose from a number of different collections to narrow down your search, like the Spider-Man collection or The Muppets collection. The Disney Through the Decades collection starts with Steamboat Willie, the Mickey Mouse cartoon from the 1920s, and goes all the way up to the Avengers series.  

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See all photos

Share links

While there isn't a way to share Disney Plus content URLs within the app, you can do so if you're watching on the service's website. To share a specific episode of a show, start playing the video and copy the URL. Send it to your friend and save them some time searching for the monorail episode of The Simpsons.

Request shows 

While there's plenty to watch on Disney Plus, there are still many shows and movies that could be added. If you don't see the show you're looking for on the service, and you haven't seen any news that it's coming later, you can request that it be brought to the service. 

Here's how to pitch your favorite Disney flick: 

1. Open Disney Plus' Help Center in the app or on your computer browser. 

2. Click Give Feedback under the search bar and select Request a Film or Show. You can suggest up to three titles at a time.

You can also read how you can watch Marvel's Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings for free now on Disney Plus or about the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series coming to the streaming service in 2022.