July 30, 2014

How to Disable Autoplay Videos in Facebook




Can you recollect discussing about embedding YouTube videos? Yes, we did. One of the features it offers is, enabling autoplay of videos. If autoplay is turned on, the reader / visitor doesn't need to click play button to start the video. Instead, as soon as the page loads, the video or playlist starts playing automatically. Sounds annoying. Isn't it? But it has a few uses too. Hmm... There's a time and place.


Facebook's Autoplay Videos


Last year, Facebook announced their take on Premium Video Ads, which is favorable to their advertising partners. As they stated,

"Premium Video Ads are designed for advertisers who want to reach a large audience with high-quality sight, sound and motion. Each 15-second video ad will start playing without sound as it appears on screen and stop if people scroll past. If people tap the video, it will expand into a full-screen view and sound will start."

Facebook is focused on delivering business opportunities through their platform. If you use Facebook as a marketing tool, you might wanna take a look at it. It increases the engagement for videos too. BUT... What about the distraction? Auto-playing videos on newsfeed?!

I don't know what's got into their heads, but it sounds annoying for me. May be, I'm easily distracted. How about you? It might boost views for videos (though users didn't really wanted to watch it) and make their advertising partners blushing.


It's Here


In this part of the World, Facebook takes some time to roll out their new updates. Hence the Facebook experience was pleasant until last week. Then, I logged into my Facebook account and videos on the newsfeed started dancing.

Facebook is thoughtful in a way as it stops playing videos as you scroll past them. Yet if you are like me, you may find it extremely annoying. Honestly, I can't even take a flashing banner. Once I noticed the first occurrence of auto-playing video on my Facebook newsfeed, I was so thrilled to do my happy snoopy dance I couldn't wait to find a way to make it stop.

The good news is, Facebook offers a way to turn off auto-playing videos on newsfeed. Still couldn't figure out how to turn off auto-playing videos on your newsfeed? It's easy! Let me walk you through the steps.


Steps:

1. Log in to your Facebook account.

2. Navigate to Facebook Settings.


3. Jump to Videos setting from left pane.


4. Now set Off for the Auto-Play Videos option.


Note: As Facebook noted, this option only applies when you using Facebook on your computer. If you need to disable auto-playing videos on your Facebook app, you have to update your Facebook app to a newer version which has the option to disable autoplay videos and disable it via the app.


Enjoy :-)




Awesome! Thanks for coming by and taking your time to read this post :) I hope you have learnt something today. Now you can share it with your friends and I'd love to hear from you too.






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Lisa Buben said...

Mayura, I love this one! You are right it can be so annoying to have a video playing especially if you are on your mobile. Even at desktop there may be times you don't want that noise coming from your desk. It looks so easy to do with your screenshots.
Thanks for sharing with us!

Harleena Singh said...

Hi Mayura,


Good to see you blogging once again, and come up with this informative post :)

Yes, those videos can be very annoying and I'd read about this feature sometime back and disabled it right away, so good to know about it as now I don't have any videos playing or disturbing me, unless I want to hear them. I guess it allows me to peacefully be online and Facebook at least, though I am not all that much other than for work.



Thanks for sharing. Have a nice rest of the week :)

Noufal Binu said...

Mayura, Glad to see you again, Sometimes Facebook videos annoying me, Now fixed the problem. I hope to see you again with a another cool article. Thanks.

Brenda Lee said...

Whoa! Great to see you back in action Mayura! Definitely missed you! This is a great tutorial and one I'm going to pass along. Those video's can be very annoying like Lisa said. Thank you for doing an easy share with us!

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Lisa,

Yeah, it's pretty easy. Ah... So it's not only me then ;) Yet I didn't notice any video ads on Facebook app though. Did you?

However as they stated (and as I experienced), videos start playing with no sound dear. I think this is a Big No-No for people with very limited data usage too. At least, Facebook didn't left us helpless with no option to turn it off.

Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts, Lisa :) Glad you liked the tutorial too.

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Harleena,

Indeed, it's nice to be back and good to see you over here too dear :)

So you don't like distractions on Facebook either, eh? Exactly! Peacefulness is much favored.

I'm glad you took the action rightaway when you heard of it dear. Though I knew it was coming, the option wasn't available for me until last week, neither auto-playing videos.

Now I think you don't have to take any action on this unless you are using Facebook app on your smartphone.

Thanks for coming by and sharing your take on this, Harleena :)

You have a fabulous weekend ahead dear!

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Noufal,

Nice to see you back here too mate :)

Ah... The first occurrence of auto-playing video was driving me crazy. Sounds like you have been dealing with it for a while, and glad you fixed it by now.

Thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts mate :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Brenda,

Owh Yeah! Back in action and nice to see you here too dear :)

Aren't they? Talking about videos, come to think of that animated pictures shared on Google+ didn't really bothered me at all. But auto-playing videos scared me away.

I hope this simple tip helps others to keep their Facebook experience distraction free, too.

Thanks for coming by and adding your thoughts on this dear :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

You're welcome, Kowshik :)

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Mate,

You've got a good point for users with limited mobile data plans. Hope they will turn off auto-playing videos option as soon as they discover it's consuming more data. Glad to know this post has been helpful to you.

Thanks for sharing your experience and kind compliments mate :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Debbie,

Nice to see you back here too dear :)

Ah... You already had it disabled. Hope your Facebook Newsfeed is peaceful now. Anyway, I noticed that Facebook started playing videos with no sound for me. Yet it was annoying enough.

Ha ha... I'm with you there as I'm also using computer late at night. No speakers, but using a headphone ;)

Thanks for coming over and adding your thoughts to the discussion :)

Cheers...

Donna Merrill said...

Hi Mayura,


I love this because there is nothing more annoying to me that those silly videos! Like you, I don't like flashing things in my face, nor do I like those videos. It just slows everything down, even on my laptop (which I use all the time.)


You have made this so easy to do, that I did it before I wrote this comment! How's that? But you always are a great teacher and make things easy to do.



Now when I go to Facebook, I'm sure it won't get "stuck" downloading.


Thank you once again!


-Donna

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Donna,

Oh... Distractions! Certainly, we don't need them though we can't eliminate each one of them :)


I can recall you mentioned you can't stand flashing banners and videos in an earlier discussion too. As you said, it slows everything down for sure.

Great! :) You had it disabled already and I'm sure you didn't wanna wait a minute with autoplaying videos feature turned on. Same here. I couldn't wait to disable it.

Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts on this topic, Donna :)

Cheers...

Adrienne said...

Hi Mayura,


When I heard about this I immediately went in and changed my settings. I found those videos so annoying when they would start automatically playing.


So I shared a post on Facebook about this but a friend of mine went into his settings to do this as well and he doesn't have the "videos" on his page. He was scratching his head over that one. Do you think it would have something to do whether or not you've ever uploaded any videos before? It just was not there for him, he took a screen shot to show me so I didn't think he'd lost his mind. Sure enough, it wasn't there.


Not sure if you know the answer to that but love to help him out.


Thank you for this post and hope you're enjoying your week so far.


~Adrienne

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Adrienne,

Like all other commenters, you can't stand autoplaying videos either, eh? :) I'm not surprised 'cause I know you prefer no distractions online.

Talking about your friend, probably, the new feature is yet to roll out for him, Adrienne. No, it doesn't have to do anything with uploading videos on Facebook. I had no videos uploaded either.

Like you, some Facebook users had that option enabled a few months ago. But I haven't had it until recently. So he will have to wait until that option shows up (He will notice once the videos on his newsfeed start to play automatically) to turn it off. Until then the videos on his newsfeed won't start playing automatically. Hence he doesn't have to worry about that option not showing up on his settings. His turn will come.

Hope it helps your friend, Adrienne :)

Thanks for dropping by, and sharing your thoughts and friend's story on this topic dear :)

Hope you have been enjoying you week too.

Cheers...