Reviews for Kanopy

Terrible app, barely functions. Two thirds of the way through every film while casting, a drm error message that won't go away and/or drop. Error message persists after resuming. Ruins the experience every time. Search function UI is very bad. UI generally is basic at best. Little to no useful organization of content. Did I mention it drops or gives an error two thirds of the way through every film? Every film. Every single one. I'd be embarrassed if I were the developers.

The online answers claim that it only uses one credit per month to watch the same video. That is obviously not at all how this is working for me. Also, if you don't rebegin a film as soon as you finish it, it will disappear from your "continue watching" list, and there is no other way to be reminded what you checked out. Also, a credit is used immediately when you briefly click play, even by accident. Hopefully these things will be addressed. This is otherwise quite an excellent tool. :)

I'm so glad Kanopy exists. Being able to watch using a library membership is such a great idea. The selection of films is fantastic, with lots of documentaries, independent, foreign and educational films, classics and film noir, etc. They change up their selection often, and let you know when movies will be leaving, so you have a chance to catch them before they do.

I love the variety of television shows available to watch. I just wish the app had a "due date/time" feature so you'd know how long you have to watch. I had to log on to the website to look, and even then, it just said 24 hours. Sadly, I use up my credits quickly from my library because of this lack of feature.

This is a great app to watch selected T.V. shows and movies on. However, there should be a list of movies that you watched in a month so you can rewatch them before the month is over. It is nice, though, that the app keeps track of all the movies that you have watched by having a red line underneath them. Unfortunately, there are no provided reviews for the T.V. shows or the movies just a synopse. Red/orange stars indicate ratings of the T.V. shows & movies.

I like the Great Courses. The "Continue Watching" tab needs improvement. It does not show series I have been watching- only individual episodes I have begun and have not watched all the way through. I struggled to find a course I started watching as it was not listed here, and I couldn't remember the title of the series. One workaround is adding to "My Watchlist", but my list is long. So now I intentionally don't finish an episode or start the next one and stop it so I can remember where I'm at.

The Android app used to be good. At the moment, however (June 2025),the Chromecast connection fails as soon as the app loses focus, e. g. when switching to another app to check something. The video keeps playing, but there's no way to control it. You have I force a Chromecast disconnect, and then start play again - from the beginning.

The public library offers 6 free "plays" on Kanopy, but the app is terrible on my Roku. It forces me to watch a movie without any interruptions, because any attempt to pause or rewind makes this app crash, and lose my play token. The interface is very frustrating: there's no sort or filter, there are only pre-defined categories, and scrolling has a lag (I have 75 Mbps downstream speed, and no other devices connected, so my connection is not the problem. Other apps work flawlessly) without any indication such as a wheel spinning that it has not reached the end of the list. In summary, this app is buggy and can't perform even the most basic functionality. Hoopla is way better, also free via the library.

Great number of educational videos. Unfortunately they are not grouped (at least that I can tell) such that you can watch a series. Update: Now I get a DRM error on my phone when trying to watch on the app. Fixes don't work. Update 2: TRASH! Don't waste your time on this as the DRM error persists. Absolutely none of their suggested fixes work.

I am sure it's a lovely app, I was really excited to use it, but I've gotten 3 different error messages trying to sign up. Either I'm already registered, which doesn't seem to be the case, or my library card number is incorrect (I copied and pasted it from my library login info that works) or my password is incorrect, but I get yet another error when I try to reset it...