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Preloading of 'Watch Later' videos has been enabled, but I do not know how to tell when a video I am about to watch has been successfully pre-loaded by the YouTube app. As others have noted (Youtube Preload limit?) there is a limit to how much video Google will download to your device. I cannot see whether a particular video is preloaded or not. I have a good (but limited) mobile network, so preloaded or not pre-loaded both load quickly.

Can you see where the data is stored? Is there a widget or indicator I missed that tells me if the video will come from the storage or from the cell network before launching it?

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I assume you're talking about the Youtube app. As far as i know videos are only preloaded when your phone is charging and connected to wifi. When a video is preloading it shows a little white arrow pointing down on the bottom right of the video (when viewing your watch it later list). When it has fully preloaded it shows a green circle with a white down arrow in it.

The files are stored in /sdcard/Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/files/ then there will be another folder (mine is seemingly random numbers). Within this there is one file per preloaded video. As far as i can tell they aren't able to be played with anything other than the youtube app.

This screenshot shows videos that have been preloaded: Youtube app showing preloaded videos

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    That explains why I was confused... for some reason, despite having the option on, the phone charging, and on WiFi... none of my Watch Later videos have preloaded at all, or even begun to download, in the past week since I enabled preloading. Commented Jul 2, 2013 at 13:52

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