How to Use Hulu

So, how do I use Hulu?

Signing into Hulu

1. Go to www.hulu.com in your web browser and click Log In.

2. Assuming that you signed up for Hulu with your email address (click Log In With Facebook if you signed up with Facebook instead), click in the box labelled “Email” and type in the email address that you used to sign up for Hulu, and then click in the box labelled “Password” and type in the password that you used to secure your Hulu account. Then click Log In.

Browsing or searching for shows to watch

1. There are popular recommendations for shows and movies right on the home page, so you can just click one.

2. You can also move your mouse cursor over the categories at the top of the screen and click an option that appears to browse for just TV shows or just movies (by upload date, genre, editor’s recommendations, etc.), kid-friendly fare, or specialized content (e.g. from overseas distributors in Britain, Japan, or Korea).

3. You can also click in the search box at the top of the screen and type in the name of a movie or TV show that you’re looking for, or some other criteria (like an actor or actress’s name, to see movies or shows that they star in). You can then click an option in the drop-down menu that appears, or click the magnifying glass (or press the “Enter” key) to search for your exact terms.

4. On the search screen, you’ll see movies, shows, and episodes or clips that match your search terms. You can filter your results by a specific form of media, or by other options (such as if they are available to free Hulu users or have closed captions available). Or, you can click Advanced Video Search…

5. …and look for a video based on its title, season or episode number, people who star in it, its genre, its air date and the network it aired on, and more.

Watching shows, commenting, and other functions

1. Once you’ve found a movie or TV show to watch (and selected an episode to watch, if applicable), you’ll be able to watch it through the Hulu video player. See our How to Watch Hulu on Computer tutorial to learn how to work it.

2. Underneath the player, you can click Details to get more information about this movie or TV show episode, such as plot summary, air date, rating, and so on. (Click on the stars here to rate the movie or episode for yourself). You can also click Twitter, Facebook, or Share to share a link to this movie or episode over Twitter, Facebook, or email.

3. You can also scroll to the bottom of the screen to see comments that people have left about this show. Click in the “Add a Comment” box and type in what you have to say, and then click Post. You can also click Like beside someone’s comment to show appreciation for it, or click Reply to make a comment in response to someone else’s comment.

You must have your Hulu account connected to your Facebook account in order to comment, reply, or “like” other comments. You can do this even if you didn’t sign up for Hulu with your Facebook account.

Favorites, Queue, and History

1. If there’s a TV show that you really like, you can add it to your “Favorites” list. Simply move your mouse cursor over the show anywhere that you find it on Hulu, and an information window will pop up. Then click Add to Favorites.

2. To access your “Favorites” menu, move your mouse cursor over your name in the top-right corner, and select Favorites from the drop-down menu that appears.

3. From here, you can click Edit Settings beside a show to choose to add either new videos or all available videos related to that show (either episodes or clips) to your “Queue” as they become available (we’ll talk about your “Queue” in a minute). Or, click the trashcan icon beside a show to remove it from your “Favorites” list.

4. If you don’t have time to watch a movie or TV show episode right now, you can move your mouse cursor over it to make an information display pop up, and then click Add to Queue.

5. Your “Queue” is where you put movies and shows that you want to watch later so that you can easily find them again when you have time to watch them. To access it, move your mouse cursor over your name in the top-right corner and click Queue. (The number next to it is the number of movies or TV episodes currently in your “Queue”.)

6. Here is your “Queue”. You can choose to group episodes by show, or view them individually in a list. You can also sort the list by the newest shows or episodes in your “Queue”, or alphabetically by show title. You can even set Hulu up to send you emails if new videos from shows in your “Favorites” list have been added to your “Queue”, or if episodes in your “Queue” are about to be removed from Hulu.

Click on an episode or movie to play it, or click the trashcan beside it to remove it from your “Queue”. You can also remove multiple videos from your “Queue” at once by clicking on the check boxes beside them to mark them, and then clicking Remove. You can also click Remove Expired Videos to remove all videos from your “Queue” that are no longer on Hulu with a single click.

7. Lastly, we’ll talk about your “History” menu, which keeps track of the videos that you’ve watched on Hulu. You can access it from your “Queue” by clicking History in the header below the top one, or you can access it from your account settings.

8. Here is your “History”. You can click Last Viewed to sort your history in chronological or reverse-chronological order (regarding when you last watched a video), or click Remove All Videos to delete your Hulu history.

You can also click on a video to view it, click the “+” icon next to it to add it to your “Queue”, click on the stars beside it to give it a rating, or click the trashcan beside it to remove just that single video from your Hulu history.

That’s a brief tour of how to use Hulu! Have a look at the other tutorials we mentioned (and those in the rest of the course) for specific details on how to do things on Hulu.