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Tech News Today
Home»Tips & Tricks»How to Stop Video Autoplay in Chrome

How to Stop Video Autoplay in Chrome

Jabin ManandharBy Jabin ManandharDecember 18, 2022
how-to-stop-chrome-from-automatically-playing-videos-stop-video-autoplay1

Whenever you are reading an article or blog online, you may have noticed that videos in it start playing automatically. By default, the autoplay option is enabled in Chrome but the audio is muted.

Even though Chrome itself does not provide any autoplay disabling option, you can disable it if you wish to. You can conveniently tweak up the settings to turn it off with the actionable steps listed below.

Table of Contents

  • Autoplay Policy in Chrome
  • How to Stop Video Autoplay in Chrome
    • Mute the Audio
    • Use a Chrome Extension
    • Create a Shortcut
  • How to Stop Video Autoplay on Youtube
  • How to Stop Video Autoplay on Other Browsers

Autoplay Policy in Chrome

Chrome has a metric called “Media Engagement Index” that determines which sites can place media that plays automatically. It tracks the user’s browsing behavior on each site and records if media is consumed on a regular basis on that site.

If a user frequently consumes a content for more than 7 seconds in the previously opened tab and video size is larger than 200*140 px, their media MDI will go up. Depending upon the MDI score, Chrome decides whether to permit the site to include autoplaying videos on their sites or not.

A user’s MEI can be accessed by typing about://media-engagement on Chrome Address bar.

mei-data

The autoplay settings also depend on whether you are using it from your PC/laptop or from a mobile device.

Here’s the list of different methods for each type of device that you can try.

How to Stop Video Autoplay in Chrome

Chrome has no video autoplay disable feature in-built. So muting audio is one of the viable option. However, if you truly want to block both the video and audio, you can go through other fixes such as installing an extension and creating a shortcut discussed in this article.

Mute the Audio

Although you don’t mind the video playing in the background, you probably don’t want the audio. And, since video autoplay cannot be completely disabled specifically for Chrome, you can follow this method to at least mute the audio.

On Desktop

If you are using a desktop then you can go through the following methods to disable autoplay.

  1. Click on the three-dots at the top-right corner of the browser window. Then go to “Settings”.
  1. Under the “Security and Privacy” section, click on the “”Site Settings”.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will find “Additional content settings”. Click and expand it.
  3. Under the Default behavior of the “Sound” section, select “Don’t allow sites to play sound”.
    Mute-sound-in-chrome

Alternatively, you can also create a customized setting to choose which sites have the autoplay feature on or off. For that, you can do the following:

Under the “Not allowed to play sound”, you can add the url of the sites which you absolutely do not want to play sound automatically.

customized-behaviors

Likewise, you can give permission to desired sites to play audio automatically by adding their website url under “Allowed to play sound”.

On Android

  1. Launch the “Chrome” app and go to “Settings”.
  2. Under settings, go to “Site settings”.
  3. Click sound and toggle “Allow sites to play sound” to off.
    allow-sites-to-play-sound-off

Alternatively, you can add website urls of the sites to  “Add to site exception”. This will allow only those specific sites to play the audio automatically while the audio is still disabled for other sites.

Use a Chrome Extension

There are only a handful of extensions that can resolve the video autoplay issue such as AutoplayStopper and HTML5 Autoplay Blocker.

Here’s how you can disable video autoplay using Chrome Extension::

  1. Go to “Chrome web store”.
  2. Search for an extension called “AutoplayStopper” and add it to chrome.
  3. After installing it, click on the extension icon in the toolbar.
  4. Select “Disable Everywhere” to disable autoplay videos on all sites.
    autoplaystopper-disable-everywhere

For more customized settings, go to settings and add the site url to include / exclude from autoplaying.

Create a Shortcut

  • Right click on the desktop and go to New > Shortcut.
  • Click on “Browse” and paste, “C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” onto the search bar.
  • Click on OK but do not click on “Next” yet. Append “–autoplay-policy=user-required”  without quotes to the url. Also add exactly a single space after the file url.
    Autoplay-policy
  • Click on “Next” and a dialog box will appear.
  • Under “Type a name for this shortcut”, give any name you want.
  • Lastly, click on “Finish.” 

How to Stop Video Autoplay on Youtube

Depending upon the device type, you can simply open any video on Youtube and tap the Autoplay switch to on or off.

It is located on the bottom of the video player for desktop/laptops whereas it lies on the top-right corner on mobile devices.

autoplay-options-on-YT

How to Stop Video Autoplay on Other Browsers

On Firefox

You can quickly turn off autoplay in Firefox by selecting the “Block Audio and Video” option under Autoplay in the Settings>Privacy & Security>Permission.

Block-audio-video-in-Firefox

On Microsoft Edge

Click on three horizontal dots on the top-right corner of the browser window and navigate to Settings. Then, under the Media Autoplay in Cookies and site permissions, set Control if audio and video play automatically on sites to limit.

MicrosoftEdge-AutoplayBlock

On Safari

In the menu bar, click on “Settings for This Website” and set the dropdown next to “Auto-play” to the “Never Auto-Play” option.

never-autoplay-videos-safari
how-to
Jabin Manandhar

Jabin is an IT Graduate. Working for almost a year as a tech writer, Jabin has covered a gamut of articles, ranging from Windows troubleshooting, Android, iOS to Internet-related issues. Besides them, he is experienced in Microsoft Office programs and has written numerous articles on Outlook, Excel, and Word. Most of his work includes resolving various Outlook issues and general software fixes. You can contact him at jabin@technewstoday.com

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View 2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Jeeva on August 2, 2022 9:45 am

    I often get video playback issues in Safari for my iPad, what is the fix?

    Reply
    • jabin on August 5, 2022 4:04 pm

      Hello Jeeva!

      Sorry, I didn’t quite get your question.

      Could you please clarify these for me?
      Is it only with the Safari browser?
      Or is the video not working for a particular site?

      Nonetheless, here are a few things you can do.

      1. Try a different browser and see if it works.
      Also, check with the Private mode on Safari. Likewise, you can even check if the video works on your other devices.

      2. Update the Safari app.

      3. Disable Content Blockers.
      Navigate to Settings > Safari > Content Blockers.
      Turn off all the blockers under it. If you don’t find any of them, move to the next solution.

      3. Furthermore, enable this setting on your device: Enable Javascript.
      Open the Settings app.
      Navigate to Safari > Advanced > JavaScript.
      Toggle on the “Enable JavaScript” option.

      Also, disable the experimental features.
      Below the JavaScript option, tap “Experimental Features”.
      First, take a screenshot of your settings.
      Then, try disabling the GPU Process options.
      You can enable them later by looking at the screenshot.

      4. Clear Safari data
      Open the Settings app.
      Go to Safari > Advanced.
      Scroll down and tap on “Clear History and Website Data.”
      Note: This will clear all the cookies and search history.

      Reply

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