How to Sync Movies to Your iPad

Copy them to your iPad with or without iTunes

By
Sam Costello
Sam Costello
Sam Costello
Writer
  • Ithaca College
Sam Costello has been writing about tech since 2000. His writing has appeared in publications such as CNN.com, PC World, InfoWord, and many others.
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Updated on August 3, 2022

What to Know

  • In iTunes 11 or later: Connect the iPad to the computer and select the iPad icon > Movies.
  • Select the Sync Movies check box and pick a movie or select Automatically include to sync all movies.
  • Without iTunes: Download and use a third-party app such as Syncios; it works similarly to iTunes.

This article explains how to sync movies and TV shows from a computer or third-party app to an iPad using iTunes 11 or later.

How to Sync iPad Movies

Along with being a music player, ebook reader, and gaming device, the iPad's big screen makes it handy for watching movies and videos. If you have movies in iTunes on a computer, it's best to keep them in sync. Here's how.

  1. Attach your iPad to your computer.

  2. Open your iPad from within iTunes by clicking the device icon at the top of the program, just below the menu items.

    Download music to iPad

  3. Select Movies from the left pane of iTunes.

    Sync movies to iPad

  4. Click the Sync Movies check box. To copy specific videos from iTunes to your iPad, select each movie manually by clicking the box next to it.

    If you don't see any movies on this screen, you don't have any downloaded to your computer. Select Movies on the left side of the main screen of iTunes to download movies you purchased.

    Sync movies to iPad

  5. To select all of your movies at once, and any you add in the future, click the Automatically include check box.

    Sync movies to iPad

  6. Select the Automatically Include drop-down arrow to filter which movies iTunes syncs to your iPad.

    Sync movies to iPad

  7. Click Apply to update and sync movies to your iPad.

How to Sync TV Shows to iPad

You can make similar changes to the TV Shows section of iTunes to sync shows. The process is almost identical to syncing movies, but you use a different section of iTunes. Here's how to keep up to date with the programs you downloaded.

  1. Open the TV Shows area of iTunes.

    Sync movies to iPad

  2. Select the Sync TV Shows check box.

    Sync movies to iPad

  3. Pick which shows and seasons to sync to your iPad, or use the check box at the top of that screen to sync all shows.

    Sync movies to iPad

  4. Click the Apply button at the bottom of iTunes.

Sync Without iTunes

You can also use a third-party program like Syncios. It's free and lets you manually copy the specific movies and other videos that you want to store on your iPad.

Movies and TV shows you sync with Syncios go on your iPad in much the same way they copy over when using iTunes. However, you don't have to open iTunes to use this program.

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