How To Watch Skillshare Videos For Free [Is It Possible?]

Searching around the web for free online courses, you might have realized that there are plenty of them but there’s always a catch.

Skillshare is one of the best online learning platforms along with others like Coursera, Udemy, and edX, but once you sign up, you soon come to realize that it might not be possible to watch any videos for free.

If you’re wondering: “How can I watch skillshare videos for free?”, read more below to find out.

Indeed, Skillshare asks for you to subscribe to its platform and pay a fee.

However, we have some tips and tricks below that you can use if you want to watch the video lessons available on the platform for free.

How Can I Watch Skillshare Videos For Free?

To give you a quick answer, yes you can watch videos on Skillshare for free.

But there are different ways to do it.

So, let’s have a look below at how it’s possible to watch them without paying a single dime.

Make Use Of The Free Trial

One way to watch Skillshare videos for free is by signing up for a Skillshare account and making use of the 7-day free trial offered when you subscribe to either its monthly or annual package.

But that includes paying for it afterward, right?

Not if you unsubscribe before the free trial ends.

While this might sound a bit scummy, not everyone can pay the Skillshare fees and that is completely understandable.

Therefore, and since the company clearly states that you can cancel anytime you want before the free trial period ends, why not do so?

This way, you can join any course you want for free and watch all the videos you want without paying for them. (You can also learn ‘How To Download Skillshare Videos On Your Phone.’)

Suggest Skillshare To A Friend

For every friend that signs up for Skillshare, you get a month of Skillshare for free!

The way it works is that you need to send your personal referral code to your friends and ask them to join Skillshare using that code.

Once they use your code, Skillshare will offer you access to an extra month of free unlimited access to the online learning platform.

So, if you want to send your referral code to 6 of your friends, you will end up getting 6 months of free access.

And if you cancel your subscription before the end of the last month, you won’t have to pay for anything at all!

Find Free Classes Offered On The Platform

Many Skillshare teachers choose to offer their classes for free, which means that you can click on the link provided by them and join those courses for free.

Even if you have never signed up for Skillshare, you can gain access with that code and watch the class videos for free without even having to submit any card details or sign up for any of their subscription offers.

On the other hand, if you are already signed up with Skillshare, you can watch the free class videos without being subscribed.

Use Skillshare-DL

Another way you can watch Skillshare videos for free that not many people know is by using Skillshare-DL.

This is a tool developed by web developers that can get you all the Skillshare videos for free.

However, it might be a bit tricky to use if it’s your first time using tools like this one.

To download courses on your computer and watch the videos for free, you need to follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Online Classes page on Skillshare to scroll through and explore all the Skillshare classes
2. Then, choose the class you want to attend and copy the URL link.
3. Head to the Skillshare-DL tool and click on ‘Runtime’ to then choose ‘Change runtime type’.
4. Check that the hardware accelerator is ‘GPU’ and save the settings.
5. Click on the ‘Play’ icon on Skillshare-DL and then on ‘Connect to Google Drive’.
6. You should get a list of options and click on the play icon that’s in front of the ‘Run This Cell to Install Skillshare-DL Requirements.’
7. Once you click on that, another configuration will appear that says ‘Run this Cell to Download Skillshare Course.’ That is where you can paste the URL of the class you chose.

When you click on the download class button, your download should start at this stage, with ticks following up the third one as your courses are downloaded and saved in your Google Drive.

After all the Skillshare courses have been successfully downloaded, you can visit your Google Drive and find the new ‘Skillshare-DL’ folder that’s been automatically created, with all the lessons in it.

You will have to open a couple of subfolders before you get to the videos, but they will be there and when you open them, you can either watch them on your Drive or download them on your computer for offline viewing.

How Much Does Skillshare Cost If I Decide To Pay For It?

While we guess that now that you know the tricks on how to get away with it for free, you might still wish to pay the subscription Skillshare has to support the company for its great work.

If you choose to pay the monthly fee, Skillshare will charge you 32 dollars every month.

If you go for the annual fee, you will have to pay only 168 dollars. (See ‘Skillshare Free Vs Premium‘ and whether Skillshare Premium is worth it.)

Now, it doesn’t take the greatest of maths skills to understand how big of a difference it is.

Paying for the annual fee is equal to 16 dollars per month!

The Skillshare platform is one of the most inexpensive online learning platforms indeed, and its offer, in combination with those free months you can get every now and then by referring your friends can get you all this knowledge with very little money invested!

The Bottom Line

Joining Skillshare‘s online learning community and watching the classes’ educational videos for free is more than possible.

You can either do it by signing up for a free trial, referring your friends, and asking them to sign up for you to earn an extra month of free access to Skillshare, joining free courses, or using the Skillshare-DL, a developers’ tool.

However, should you wish to pay for Skillshare, choosing the annual premium membership will get you so much knowledge for very little money.

So, think about investing in it if you have the money to do so!