Having videos blare into life when you’re scrolling through your feed on a social media site or when you click on a web page can be annoying and, in some cases, reveal that you’re not actually paying attention at a meeting or family gathering.
There’s no master control that can disable them on all apps you may have on your Android device, but it is possible to stop these intrusive episodes on certain apps, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. We show you the settings you need to use if you want to silence the autoplay videos.
How to turn off autoplay videos in Facebook
The autoplay setting isn’t exactly kept in an obvious place (surprise, surprise), but this is how to find it and turn it off.
Open the app then tap on the three lines in the top right corner. From the drop-down menu, select Settings then scroll down to the bottom of the next page until you find Media and Contacts then tap it.
Again, you’ll need to scroll down until you find the Auto-play option. Tap this and you’ll be presented with three options, but you only want the last one – Never Auto-play videos – so select it and you shouldn’t see videos popping up in your feed anymore.
How to turn off autoplay videos on the Android Instagram app
At the time of writing there’s no way to stop autoplay videos on Instagram, but one thing you can do is turn off the sound. To do this, just tap any of the videos playing in your feed and it should be immediately muted. Thankfully, this setting applies to all videos, so there’s no need to repeat it. Should you want the sound to return, simply tap any video once more.
How to turn off autoplay videos in the YouTube app
YouTube isn’t too bad for auto-playing content, and it’s actually a benefit if you like to listen to music.
But if you don’t want videos to start up immediately after the previous one has finished, then there’s a setting that can prevent it from happening.
Open the YouTube app and tap on your account profile image in the top right corner. Select Settings > Auto-play > Auto-play next video and ensure that the last option is switched off.
How to turn off autoplay for Twitter videos
To stop autoplaying videos in the Android Twitter app, launch it and tap on your profile picture in the top-left corner. From the menu that appears select Settings & privacy > Data usage > Video autoplay
Finally, choose the Never option.
How to turn off autoplay videos in Chrome
Up until recently is was possible to open the Chrome app then select Settings > Site settings > Media > Autoplay and switch it off.
Google has removed this option in the latest version of Chrome, so the only alternative if auto-playing videos really bother you is to switch to another browser that allows you more control over how you use the internet. You can take a look at our pick of the best Android browsers for some alternatives to try.
Author: Martyn Casserly, Contributor, Tech Advisor
Martyn has been involved with tech ever since the arrival of his ZX Spectrum back in the early 80s. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews.