Streaming services love autoplay. Whether it’s playing a trailer for a show you don’t want to watch or automatically starting something else when you’ve finished watching, autoplay features can quickly become annoying. Here’s how you can turn autoplay off in your favorite streaming apps.
Turn off autoplay for Netflix
There are two Netflix settings that affect autoplay. One setting will stop Netflix from automatically starting the next episode of a show, and the other stops previews of shows and movies from autoplaying. You can change these settings on either mobile or web, and the changes will apply across both.
When you disable the settings on the web or mobile, those settings should be applied to your smart TV app, too. However, even with Autoplay Previews disabled, your smart TV may still show autoplay previews once you select a show or movie in Netflix.To turn off autoplay on mobile devices, open the app and select your profile. Tap My Netflix at the bottom right of the screen, then tap the menu icon at the top right of the screen. Select Manage Profiles, and choose the profile you want to change. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find the toggles to disable Autoplay next episode and Autoplay previews.
In a browser, sign in to Netflix and click the profile icon at the top of the screen. Select Account, choose Profiles from the left-hand menu, and select your profile. Choose Playback settings, and toggle off Autoplay next episode and Autoplay previews.
Disable autoplay on YouTube
YouTube is another place where autoplay can become incredibly frustrating. You watch a 30-second video, and YouTube just carries on showing you more and more videos that you have no interest in watching at all. Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to turn this off.
The quickest way to turn off autoplay is directly from a video. You should see the autoplay toggle in the on-screen controls. Turning this toggle off will stop autoplay.
You can also disable autoplay through the app settings. Tap your profile icon, and then tap the settings icon at the top. Under Video and audio preferences, tap Playback. Toggle Auto-play next video off.
Unlike Netflix, autoplay settings for YouTube can be different for different devices. You could have autoplay on for your mobile app but off for your browser, for example. If you want autoplay gone, you’ll need to disable it for every device.
Stop autoplay previews on Prime Video and other streamers
If you’re annoyed by autoplay on other streaming services, you should be able to disable it in most streaming apps. The exact steps will depend on the streaming app that you’re using.
To turn off autoplay in Firefox, go to Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to the Permissions section, and select Autoplay. Click the Default for all websites dropdown and select Block Audio and Video. You can also apply settings to specific websites.
Sign in to your Prime Video account and click the profile icon at the top of the screen. Select “Account & Settings,” and click the “Player” tab. Select the “Off” radio buttons for Autoplay and Autoplay video and live events. You can also turn off autoplay on mobile by going to Profile > Settings > Auto Play and toggling off Allow Auto Play on this device.
For Disney+, you can turn off autoplay for the next episode of TV shows and also turn off background videos that play on landing pages. These settings should apply across devices that are using the same account. Open the Disney+ app, tap your profile icon at the bottom of the screen, and select Edit Profiles. Choose your profile and toggle off Autoplay and Background Video.
For Apple TV, applying the settings on the TV app on your phone may sync to other devices, but this isn’t always the case. You may need to turn the settings off in your other devices, too. In the TV app, you can turn off settings to play the next episode and play a recommendation, but there’s also a hidden setting that can stop autoplay previews.
In the Apple TV app, tap the profile icon, and you’ll see toggles for Play Next Episode and Play a Recommendation. You can find a third toggle by going to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and toggling off Auto-Play Video Previews.
Block autoplay at the source with browser and device settings
In some cases, it may be possible to stop videos from autoplaying by changing your browser or device settings. Not every device or browser offers these settings, however.
For Apple devices, as explained above, going to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and toggling off Auto-Play Video Previews can help. You can also disable autoplay for videos in Safari on macOS by going to Safari > Settings > Auto-Play and choosing Never Auto-Play for When visiting other websites or for any specific websites that you currently have open.
To turn off autoplay in Firefox, go to Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to the “Permissions” section, and select Autoplay. Click the Default for all websites dropdown and select Block Audio and Video. You can also apply settings to specific websites.
To disable autoplay in Microsoft Edge, click the menu icon and select Settings. Choose “Privacy, search, and services” from the left-hand menu, and select Site permissions. Select All permissions, scroll down, and click Media autoplay. Click the Control if audio and video play automatically on the sites dropdown and select Block. You can also change the settings on a per-site basis.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing in Chrome’s standard settings that you can change to disable autoplay for videos. The best you can do is block sound for specific sites, which isn’t ideal if you want to watch a video on a website without it automatically playing something else.
Autoplay may be good for the owners of streaming apps and services, but it isn’t always great for the consumer. If you’re sick of autoplay, you should be able to turn it off and choose what you want to watch instead.
