Reddit Autoplay Settings
Turn off autoplay on Reddit
The control is not in a media or a playback menu. It is under Accessibility, three levels down, it is called Autoplay Video Previews, and it offers three answers rather than an off switch. The one you want is Never. GIFs are governed separately by a toggle beside it. Both paths are below and both are ones you follow yourself.
You found the autoplay setting in Reddit, set it to Never, went back to the feed, and the GIFs kept looping.
The setting worked. It just does not cover animated images. Reddit splits autoplay into two controls that sit next to each other on the same screen: Autoplay Video Previews, which is the three-way choice you already found, and Autoplay Animated Images, which is a plain toggle and is the one holding the GIFs.
Finding either of them is the other half of the problem, because neither is filed anywhere you would think to look. Both paths are below.
TrueTo doesn't automate this one yet — the path below is manual. TrueTo still applies other settings automatically across 151 apps in one tap.
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What's in this profile
None of the settings below are in TrueTo's automated catalog yet — every row is marked Manual. Each path is verified; you make the change yourself.
- Autoplay Video Previews Manual
Settings path:Avatar → ☰ → Settings → Accessibility → Media & animations → Autoplay Video Previews
Whether videos start playing on their own as they scroll into view. Not a switch: the choices are Always, Only on Wi-Fi, and Never, and only Never stops a video starting by itself. It is filed under Accessibility rather than under anything named media or playback, which is three levels down from Settings. It covers video previews and nothing else, so the GIFs are the row below. No check in TrueTo's catalog reaches it, so this one is set by hand.
- Autoplay Animated Images Manual
Settings path:Avatar → ☰ → Settings → Accessibility → Media & animations → Autoplay Animated Images
The GIFs. A plain toggle, sitting on the same Media & animations screen as the video picker above, and the reason setting video previews to Never leaves animated images looping. Reddit lists Reduce motion on that screen too. TrueTo does not automate this one either, so set it while the screen is already open.
Manual Not yet in TrueTo's supported catalog. The path above is accurate; you make the change yourself.
What most guides miss
Reddit files its autoplay controls under Accessibility. Not media, not playback, not data usage: the menu built for text size and motion reduction, three levels down from Settings. It also moved there. Two threads on r/help from September 2024 have people working through the menus and concluding the feature had been removed outright, and in one of them a Reddit-flaired helper agrees with them before the setting turns up on the Accessibility screen. When the people answering support questions cannot find a setting, the filing is the bug.
Reddit's own help articles disagree with each other about the name of the screen, which appears as both Media & animations and Media and animations. Worth knowing before you decide your app is a different version from the one the instructions describe.
The larger mismatch is between the website and the app. On the web there is one Autoplay Media toggle covering everything. The Android app has no setting by that name at all, splitting the same idea into a three-way picker and a separate GIF toggle. Search for this on a phone and Google's featured snippet hands back the desktop control name, so the first answer most people read is for a screen they are not looking at.
There is also a behaviour with no control behind it. Reddit states that its official Android app will respect the last mute setting you used on a video displayed in-feed. That is the whole of it: no mute setting exists on the settings screen, so sound is governed by whatever you last tapped on a video rather than by anything you can set in advance. Separately, some users report that promoted posts play regardless of the setting. That is user-reported rather than documented, and the most-cited account of it describes the desktop site rather than the Android app, so it is worth knowing about and not worth treating as a fix.
If you also want the silent previews in the YouTube feed to stop, that is a different app with the same shape of problem: two settings, one of them nobody finds. The YouTube autoplay paths are written up separately.
Common questions
Where is the autoplay setting in the Reddit app on Android?
Under Accessibility, which is not where most people look. Tap your avatar, open the menu, then Settings, then Accessibility, then Media & animations. Autoplay Video Previews is on that screen, and setting it to Never stops videos starting by themselves in the feed. Autoplay Animated Images, the toggle that covers GIFs, is on the same screen.
Is Reddit's autoplay setting a toggle?
Autoplay Video Previews is not. It is a choice between Always, Only on Wi-Fi, and Never. Only on Wi-Fi reads like restraint but still plays video anywhere you have Wi-Fi, which is most of the time, so Never is the only choice that stops video starting by itself. Autoplay Animated Images, on the same screen, is a plain toggle.
Why do GIFs still autoplay on Reddit after I set autoplay to Never?
Because they are governed by a different control. Autoplay Video Previews covers video only. Animated images have their own toggle, Autoplay Animated Images, sitting beside it at avatar, then menu, then Settings, then Accessibility, then Media & animations. Setting previews to Never leaves every GIF looping until that second control is turned off.
How do I mute videos in the Reddit Android app?
There is no mute setting to turn on. Reddit states that its official Android app will respect the last mute setting you used on a video displayed in-feed, so the app carries your last choice forward rather than offering a control for it. A documented behaviour with nothing on the settings screen behind it.
Reddit's help says Autoplay Media, but my app does not have that.
That name belongs to Reddit on the web, where a single Autoplay Media toggle covers everything. The Android app splits the same idea into two: Autoplay Video Previews, a three-way choice between Always, Only on Wi-Fi and Never, and a separate Autoplay Animated Images toggle for GIFs. Both are at avatar, then menu, then Settings, then Accessibility, then Media & animations.
Did Reddit remove the autoplay setting?
No, it moved. It now sits under Accessibility, then Media & animations, three levels down from Settings. Two threads on r/help in September 2024 show people concluding the feature had been removed, one of them with a Reddit-flaired helper agreeing, before the setting was found on the Accessibility screen. Reddit's own articles spell that screen both Media & animations and Media and animations, so either spelling is the right one to look for.
Can TrueTo turn off Reddit autoplay for me?
Not yet. Neither Autoplay Video Previews nor Autoplay Animated Images is in TrueTo's verified catalog today, so both are set by hand from the paths above. TrueTo is built to configure Android app settings and coverage is rolling out setting by setting; these two are not part of it at the moment.
This one stays manual for now. TrueTo automates 151 other apps' worth of settings in one tap, and every one of them is reversible.
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Two controls, side by side, and only one of them has the word video in its name. The other one is the GIFs.