The three best ways to download movies to iPad without iTunes

iPad is mostly sought for two purposes; either to enjoy pokies games or to watch movies. Watching movies on iPad needs a whole lot of process as you need to download the play movies app from iTunes App store on your iPad; then open the app and choose your Google account. Once the app populated with your content you click the menu button in the top left of the screen, select my library and there you will see movies you have purchased or listed and a download button added to each one to watch them.

Here you will find the three best ways to download movie without going to iTunes. It is not that iTunes is bad and you need to avoid it but many a tomes issues arise regarding movies file formats. Many video formats aren’t compatible with iTunes which means that you  are missing out on the opportunity to watch your video library from your iPad. Even if you do find a video that’s iTunes friendly, you must first import them into your iTunes library and then finally sync them to your iPad. It’s a long process, and one that needs simplifying.

1. Use cloud storage

Using cloud storage is the simplest way to transfer movies to your iPad, but it may also be the longest way  especially for larger files.

There are many third-party storage options that have accompanying iPad apps, with Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive being the popular options. Offering 2GB of free storage when you sign up and 500MB for every referral (up to 16GB), Dropbox seems to be the most popular service.  So, to start with, make sure that you’ve downloaded the Dropbox app from the App Store on your iPad and installed the Dropbox folder on your PC.

To transfer a movie, simply copy and paste the movie file from your computer into the Dropbox folder. Then depending on the size of the file and your internet connection, it could take up to a few hours to sync the movie to Dropbox. You’ll know once it has finished syncing because it’ll have a green tick next to its icon.

Once its finished syncing, you can open the Dropbox app on your iPad and find the newly added movie file. If you have an active internet connection, you can just tap to play and the movie should start streaming on your iPad – however if you want it for offline use, simply tap the Star in the top right hand corner to save the movie to your device.

If you want to export the movie so it’s available in the Photos app, that’s also an option. Once you’ve selected your movie, tap the Share icon in the top right hand corner and tap on Save Video. It’ll then export the video from Dropbox, ready to be accessed via the Photos app.

2. Use third-party software

The second way to download the movie is by using the third-party software. iExplorer allows you more freedom to interact with your iPad storage than iTunes does amongst other things. However for this workaround to work, you’ll also need to install a third-party video player such as Player Xtreme HD which is available all free from the App Store.

Once you’ve installed both pieces of software, plug your iPad into your computer. If it’s the first time that you’ve plugged the iPad into the computer you’re using, unlock the iPad and tap “Trust”. Once you’ve plugged in your iPad, open iExplorer and your iPad should automatically be detected and displayed. From here, you’re free to browse its file system as well as any iTunes backups that you have on the computer.

For the task at hand, select the “Files” menu and then select “Apps” which will take you to the folders contained in your iPad’s app directories. From here, select and expand the PlayerXtreme folder  and open the Downloads folder inside. Once you’ve found the Downloads folder, simply drag and drop the movie file from your computer into the folder.

The movie should then start to transfer, so give it a few minutes to complete – there’s a progress bar in the bottom right hand corner to keep an eye on the progress.

Once it has been completed, open the Player Xtreme HD app on your iPad and you should see the movie that you’ve just added. From here, select the video and it should start to play in-app.

3. Try WALTR

There’s another better option than the above for both windows and Mac users and that is WALTR. Unlike iExplorer, after 14 days of use you’ll have to pay $29.95  for WALTR, but you’ll be paying for a quick and easy process that’ll add videos almost any video type (MKV, AVI and MP4 included) to your native Videos app. It negates the need for a third-party video player on the iPad, which in turn should conserve battery life, as stock apps are always more battery efficient.

So firstly, download WALTR from the Softorino website. It’s all free to download, install and use for 14 days but if you still want to use it after that, you’ll have to pay. Once you’ve installed the app, open it and plug your iPad into your Mac as PC version still to come.

Once you plug your iPad into your Mac, it should be automatically recognised by WALTR. If you’re unsure if the right device is connected, the name of your device will be displayed at the top of the WALTR window. From here, you can either click the ‘+’ icon to browse your library for the movie you want to transfer to your iPad, or you can do something far quicker – just drag and drop the file into WALTR.

Once you’ve selected your file, the file should start to upload to your iPad. The process is so fast that the whole process of selecting and adding a 200mb MP4 video will take under 15 seconds to download.

Once the process has been completed, you’ll be able to access your newly sync’d movie via the Videos app on your iPad. It’s worth mentioning that the same process can also sync alternative audio formats such as CUE, FLAC, APE, ALAC, OGG, AAC, AIFF and WAV to the Music app without any level of compression or conversion.

Better to test these three best ways and find out which suits you best to watch movies.