Google released updates for the company's YouTube application for Android and Apple's iOS operating system recently. One of the changes of the update moved the autoplay toggle; it is now displayed in the media player.
YouTube users who use the web version, e.g. on a desktop operating system such as Windows, will get the same change. Google is rolling it out currently to all users who access YouTube on the web.
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Most users should see a prompt the next time they play a video on the site stating "looking for autoplay? Choose whether videos automatically play next".
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It is easy to dismiss though and while some users may spot the new toggle in the player interface right away, others may wonder where the autoplay button is or whether it has been removed.
The autoplay toggle was displayed in the sidebar on desktop versions of YouTube up until recently. Google introduced the autoplay behavior on YouTube in 2015.
Autoplay is set to ON by default, which means that YouTube will start to play the next video in the queue, or the next video that its algorithm picked to be watched, automatically after the active video ends.
Some users dislike autoplay on YouTube as it loads a new video and prevents users from interacting with the current one or checking out other recommendations. If you like to read and leave comments, autoplay is problematic.
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Autoplay has been added to the video player on YouTube. If you want to turn off Youtube autoplay, all you have to do is click on the new icon -- which displays "autoplay is on/off" when you hover over it. A click or tap toggles the option, and the status indicates the change immediately.
YouTube remembers the state of autoplay even if you leave the page or close the site entirely. Please note that the toggle does not interfere with the auto-playing of videos when you open them on the site, it is just designed to allow or prevent autoplay of the video that is in queue after the current one ends.
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The change improves the visibility of the autoplay toggle on YouTube, and it may lead to more users disabling next video autoplay functionality on the site.
Now You: what is your take on autoplay functionality?
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Summary
Nothing is more annoying than autoplay videos. Here is how to mute or stop them from playing in Chrome on the desktop and Android.
One of the most annoying things any internet user must deal with is video automatically playing when you hit a site. Starting with Chrome 64, we showed you that you could permanently mute the annoying autoplay videos. When you’re on the offending site, click the site info button and click Sound, and change it to “Always block on the site.”
While that’s all well and good, you may want to stop videos from playing automatically in the first place as it wastes bandwidth on mobile. We have covered how to avoid it with third-party extensions and tweaking browser settings – but those options have been hit or miss for years. So, here is how to tackle the autoplay problem once and for all with Chrome on your mobile device and the desktop.
Disable Autoplay Videos in Chrome on Android
Android makes disabling autoplay videos simple. First, launch Chrome on your phone or tablet and go to Settings > Site Settings.
Next, scroll down the menu and tap on Media, and then Autoplay and toggle the switch off.
Disable Autoplay Videos in Chrome on Desktop
As Chrome development continues, the company has said it will eventually include some options that make it easy to stop autoplay videos on sites as it does with muting them. Until then, you can still get the same results by digging into it a bit.
Launch Chrome and in the Address Bar type: chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy and hit Enter. That will bring you directly to the flag that you need to change. From the drop-down box, change the setting from Default to “Document user activation is required” and relaunch the browser.
Now, while an autoplay video might pop up on a site, it will not play automatically, and you will have to specifically click or tap on it if you want it to play. Using this, in addition to the muting option, will save you a lot of frustrations while browsing the web in Chrome.
Do you find sites that autoplay videos annoying? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts. Or for more tech discussion, join our gP Forums for more troubleshooting help and advice.
Android, Google, Google Chrome, Mobile
I want to disable YouTube autoplay in Google Chrome.
I followed the instructions in How to Disable YouTube Video Autoplay
I went to chrome://chrome/settings/content and changed the settings to "Click to Play".
It worked, but a few days ago it stopped working and YouTube videos started to autoplay again on my computer. How do I disable autoplay in Google Chrome without installing any plugin? I'm using Google Chrome in Windows.
2022-02-19 update: If you don't use any plugin or extension, you can't stop sound/video/music from auto-playing on any website which the website admin has set to autoplay. The only way to stop autoplay is not to use Chrome.
This problem has bothered me for years, but Google doesn't want it to be possible to disable autoplay on Chrome.