You need an Apple ID and iTunes on your computer to buy or rent movies from Apple, but if you have both, searching for and downloading movies is easy to do. Follow these simple instructions to download movies from the iTunes Store.
Locating and Downloading a Movie From iTunes
Although streaming movies is popular, downloading them makes sense when you won’t be near a reliable high-speed network connection.
Difference Between Buying and Renting a Download
When you buy a movie at iTunes, it is yours forever, whether you download it or stream it. When you rent a movie, you have a 30-day window to begin watching it, after which your rental expires. However, once you start watching the rental for the first time, you have only 48 hours to finish watching, after which it disappears from your computer. You can watch it multiple times within those 48 hours. Click the back arrow at the top left corner of the information screen to return to the iTunes Store, where you can select other movie thumbnail images to check out additional movies.
Use the Search Function
If you know what movie you’re looking for, you can enter a keyword from the title into the Search box in the iTunes window. When you’re connected to the iTunes Store, the Search box returns results from the iTunes store only, instead of from the media that’s already in your iTunes library. However, if you enter a keyword, the iTunes Store returns all results with that keyword, including music and TV shows.
Locate and Watch Your Movie
To locate your movie, open iTunes, select Movies in the drop-down menu in the left corner, and choose either Rented or Unwatched to find your movie, The Rented tab only appears when you have a rented movie. On this screen, look in the upper right corner. If you see a circling icon, the download is ongoing. Wait for it to stop before disconnecting from the network or turning off your computer. To watch your movie, open iTunes, select Movies in the drop-down menu in the left corner, and choose either Rented or Unwatched at the top of the screen to find your movie. To play it, click the movie thumbnail image to expand the screen and press the Play arrow that appears on the larger movie image. The movie starts playing full-screen with the usual play/pause, fast forward, fast back, and volume controls. If you want, you can reduce the size of the movie screen.
