YouTube'due south silent autoplay feature—establish in the abode and subscriptions tabs—isn't the nigh intuitive concept Google's ever cooked up. For starters, if a video autoplays for too long while y'all're scrolling through your feed, the video gets added to your history, even if you don't click on it. Then if you decide to watch the video at a later fourth dimension, it starts right where the autoplay left off, instead of dorsum at the beginning. These quirks solitary are plenty to make you want to pull the plug on autoplay altogether. Luckily, there is a manner to blackball it from your YouTube feeds.

Deactivate autoplay on YouTube'due south home and subscriptions tabs

The autoplay setting for the home and subscriptions tabs is incredibly piece of cake to miss if you don't know where to look. First, open the YouTube app on your favorite device. Then instead of navigating to the "autoplay" tab within the Settings menu (where yous'd expect it to be), caput over to "General." Five rows down, you'll see "Muted playback in feeds."

As Android Police's Rita already explained in a previous story, this setting is very confusingly named. Instead of muting or unmuting video in your feed (autoplay content is always muted until you tap on the video), this option actually controls whether or non the muted videos automatically start to play when scrolling through your YouTube.

Once you tap "Muted playback in feeds," the options from there are pretty straight frontward: The default "Always on" mode means that videos volition start to autoplay in your feeds as long as an internet connexion is available. "Wi-Fi only" is reserved for those connected to a Wi-Fi network. Then "Off" will prevent videos from autoplaying in your feeds, period. Cull that final selection, and voilà, no more unwatched videos filling your history.

Pros and cons of leaving autoplay activated

If you're still on the fence nearly what to do with autoplay, in that location are valid arguments for either side.

On i paw, autoplay allows you lot to preview a video — complete with closed captions — to help you determine if the video is worth watching in full. This feature may as well help you observe new videos that commonly wouldn't take piqued your interest.

On the other mitt, limiting or fifty-fifty deactivating autoplay tin can help conserve data for phones running on metered connections. Without that picayune autoplay teaser, you lot also lower your take a chance of being sucked into a video that you otherwise wouldn't have cared to view. Finally, autoplay ensures simply the videos you lot really picket country in your history.

Whichever option fits your needs boils down to personal preference. Luckily, YouTube gives users the freedom to choose, even if that choice is filed in the wrong settings carte du jour under a misleading name.

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About The Author

Zach Laidlaw (485 Manufactures Published)

Zach is an experienced writer, cocky-proclaimed tech addict, and hobbyist gamer. Throughout his career, he'due south worked for Samsung and Apple, giving him a wide view of the mobile tech landscape at large. To learn more than, connect on Twitter @ztlaidlaw

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