You bought a Udemy course on video editing. Or maybe a Skillshare class on motion graphics. You want to watch it on a flight, in a cabin with no wifi, or just on the train without burning through your data plan. Reasonable request. But when you go looking for a download button on the Mac version of these platforms, you hit a wall.
Most course platforms offer offline viewing in their iOS or Android apps. On Mac? Nothing. Udemy’s desktop site doesn’t have it. Skillshare doesn’t either. Coursera lets you download some content on mobile but locks the feature out of the browser entirely. The assumption seems to be that if you’re on a laptop, you must be connected to the internet. Anyone who’s spent time on a plane or in a rural area knows how wrong that is.
Here’s how to download courses you’ve paid for so you can watch them offline on your Mac.
The ethics, upfront
You paid for access to these lectures. Downloading them for personal offline viewing is no different from saving a Kindle book for reading on a plane. You’re not redistributing them, uploading them anywhere, or sharing your account. You’re watching what you paid for, without a connection.
That said, check the terms of service for your specific platform. Most prohibit downloading through third-party tools even though they offer offline modes in their own mobile apps. The practical reality is that people download paid course content for offline use all the time, but you should understand what the terms say.
Why the mobile offline mode doesn’t help on Mac
Udemy and Skillshare both have download buttons in their mobile apps. Tap the icon next to a lecture, and it saves to your phone or tablet for offline viewing. That works fine if you want to watch on a small screen.
But there’s no equivalent for macOS. Udemy doesn’t have a Mac app. Skillshare’s desktop experience is browser-only. Coursera has a Mac app but limits offline downloads to certain subscription tiers and courses. If you’re working through a 40-hour course with complex screen recordings, watching on a phone isn’t practical. You need the content on your laptop.
How to download course lectures with StreamStow
StreamStow has a built-in tabbed browser. That’s the piece that makes this work. You’re not copying and pasting URLs from one app to another. You log into the course platform directly inside StreamStow, and the app detects video as you browse.
Here’s the process.
Log into your course platform. Open StreamStow and use the built-in browser to go to Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, or whatever platform your course is on. Sign in with your normal credentials. The browser works like any other browser. Cookies, sessions, logins all work the way you’d expect.
Go to the first lecture. Open the course and start playing a lesson. StreamStow’s video detection picks up the stream automatically. You’ll see a download indicator appear. This is the same embedded video detection that works across 1000+ sites.
Download each lecture in order. Work through the course section by section. Open a lecture, let it detect, download it. Move to the next one. For a typical 10-hour course with 60 short lectures, you can get through the whole thing in about 15-20 minutes. You don’t need to watch each lecture in full. Just load it long enough for the detection to pick up the stream.
Name your files as you go. When the download dialog appears, rename the file to something you’ll recognize later. “03-color-correction-basics” is a lot more useful than whatever random string the platform assigns to the video URL. Staying organized here saves you from having to sort through a pile of identically named files on the plane.
Use the vault for course downloads
Downloaded course lectures are proprietary content. Even though you paid for access, you probably don’t want them sitting in your Downloads folder alongside random PDFs and screenshots. And if you share your Mac with anyone, you might not want course files visible in Finder at all.
StreamStow’s Secure Vault handles this. When you download a lecture, choose “Save to Vault” instead of the regular save location. The file goes straight into an AES-256 encrypted folder that locks with Touch ID. When the vault is locked, those files don’t show up anywhere on your Mac. Not in Finder, not in Spotlight, not in any file manager.
This keeps your course library separate and protected without cluttering up your normal folders. Open the vault when you’re ready to watch, close it when you’re done. The differences between encrypted and unencrypted storage matter more than you’d think once you’ve got 50+ lecture files on your machine.
Tips for batch downloading a full course
Some courses have 100+ short lectures. Going through them one at a time works, but a few habits will speed things up.
Work by section. Most platforms group lectures into modules or chapters. Open the first module, download every lecture in it, then move to the next. This keeps your files in logical order and makes it easy to pick up where you left off if you get interrupted.
Keep a text file with lecture numbers and filenames. If you’re downloading a 60-lecture course across two sessions, you’ll want a quick reference so you don’t miss lecture 34 or accidentally download lecture 12 twice. It takes ten seconds and prevents headaches later.
Check your disk space before you start. A 10-hour course at 720p runs around 5-8 GB. At 1080p, double that. If you’re downloading multiple courses for a long trip, make sure you’ve got room. The vault uses the same disk space as regular downloads, so factor that into your total.
What about courses behind DRM?
Some platforms apply DRM (digital rights management) to their video streams. If a platform uses Widevine L1 or similar encrypted delivery, the video detection may not be able to capture the stream. This varies by platform and even by individual course.
In practice, many courses on Udemy and Skillshare stream without heavy DRM. Coursera’s approach depends on the institution providing the course. The only way to know is to try it. StreamStow gives you 3 free trial downloads before you pay anything, so you can test with your specific course before committing.
Watching your downloaded courses offline
Once the lectures are on your Mac, they play in any video player. QuickTime, VLC, IINA — whatever you prefer. If you saved them to the vault, open the vault with Touch ID first, then play directly from there.
On a plane, in a hotel with terrible wifi, at a coffee shop where you’d rather not stream over public wifi — the lectures are right there on your drive. No buffering, no connection required.
Content disclaimer
StreamStow is designed for downloading personal content, public domain videos, and creative commons media. Please respect copyright laws and platform terms of service.
If you’ve got a long flight coming up and a course you’ve been meaning to finish, download StreamStow and pull those lectures down before you leave. Three free downloads is enough to test the detection on your platform and confirm everything works with your specific course.