YouTube Autoplay Settings
Turn off autoplay on YouTube. Then do it again.
Autoplay next video queues the next thing when a video ends. Playback in feeds plays silent previews while you scroll. They sit on different screens, turning off the first leaves the second running, and both paths below are ones you follow yourself: neither setting is in TrueTo's verified catalog yet.
You turned Autoplay off in YouTube. Videos stopped queueing themselves at the end. Then you opened the Home tab and something on the screen was still moving.
That is a second setting, on a different screen, with a different name. YouTube calls it Playback in feeds, it plays previews silently while you scroll, and it survives turning Autoplay next video off. Silence is why it takes so long to notice, and why people go back to the setting they already changed and assume it failed to stick.
Both paths are below. The second one has a consequence that is worth knowing before you decide.
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.
YouTube
- Autoplay next video Manual
Settings path:Profile picture → Settings → Autoplay
Starts the next video the moment the current one ends. Google documents the path above, and there is a second way in: a switch at the top of the video player itself. Three how-to publishers between October 2025 and March 2026 route this through a Video and audio preferences screen instead, and two separate research sweeps here reached opposite answers, so the label your phone shows is the one to trust. No check in TrueTo's catalog reaches it, so this one is set by hand.
- counterintuitive: Playback in feeds Manual
Settings path:Profile picture → Settings → General → Playback in feeds
Previews that play on their own, silently, as you scroll Home and Shorts. A separate setting from Autoplay next video: turning that one off leaves this one running. The choices are Always on, Wi-Fi only, and Off. YouTube dropped "Muted" from the label, and one setting now answers to three names across YouTube's own material: the help URL still says muted playback in feeds, the article is titled "Use the inline player", and the app says Playback in feeds. The catalog check that targets it still looks for the old label, so it cannot match the new one.
Counterintuitive — feels harmless to leave on; the default benefits the platform, not you.
Manual Not yet in TrueTo's supported catalog. The path above is accurate; you make the change yourself.
What most guides miss
The previews are not just motion. Feed previews you never chose to play can enter watch history, and watch history is what your recommendations are built from. So Playback in feeds quietly decides part of what YouTube shows you next, which puts it in a different category from a setting that only affects what your eyes have to deal with.
Autoplay next video is stored per device. Google's wording is that you can have different Autoplay settings for different devices, so turning it off on the phone leaves the TV and the laptop exactly as they were. Spotify runs the other way around: its Canvas setting is stored against the account, so one change covers everywhere you sign in. Carry the expectation from either app into the other and you get it backwards.
The path itself is unsettled. Google's own article puts Autoplay directly under Settings. Three how-to publishers, writing between October 2025 and March 2026, put it behind a Video and audio preferences screen with a Playback section inside it. Two independent research sweeps here read the sources and reached opposite answers, which is a documentation problem rather than a settled fact, so the labels on your own handset are the tiebreaker.
Threads on r/youtube in 2022 and again in 2024 report Autoplay turning itself back on. Those are user accounts rather than anything Google states. What Google does state is that autoplay stops after 30 minutes on mobile data and after 4 hours on Wi-Fi, and that it is off by default for accounts aged 13 to 17. A session that went quiet on its own is the documented behaviour; a setting that reads On when you left it Off is not.
Common questions
How do I turn off autoplay on YouTube on Android?
There are two settings and they sit on different screens. For the one that starts the next video, tap your profile picture, then Settings, then Autoplay, and turn Autoplay next video off; the same switch also sits at the top of the video player. For the previews that play as you scroll, tap your profile picture, then Settings, then General, then Playback in feeds, and set it to Off. Some published guides route the first one through a Video and audio preferences screen rather than straight from Settings, so go by the labels your own app shows.
Why do videos still play in my YouTube feed after I turned Autoplay off?
Because they are two settings. Autoplay next video governs what happens when a video ends. The previews that start on their own while you scroll Home and Shorts are Playback in feeds, at profile picture, then Settings, then General. It survives turning Autoplay next video off, and its previews are silent, which is why it takes a while to notice.
What is Playback in feeds in YouTube?
The setting that lets video previews play automatically, without sound, in the Home and Shorts feeds. It offers three choices: Always on, Wi-Fi only, and Off. YouTube used to call it muted playback in feeds and dropped the word Muted from the label, so the same setting now appears under three names in YouTube's own material: muted playback in feeds in the help URL, "Use the inline player" as the article title, and Playback in feeds in the app.
If I turn off YouTube autoplay on my phone, is it off on my TV and laptop?
No. Google states that you can have different Autoplay settings for different devices, so turning it off on Android leaves every other device where it was. Spotify works the opposite way, storing its Canvas setting against the account rather than the handset, so an expectation carried over from one app is wrong in the other.
Do the previews that play in my YouTube feed affect my recommendations?
They can. Feed previews you never chose to play can enter watch history, and watch history is what recommendations are built from. That makes Playback in feeds a setting about what YouTube learns about you, not only about what moves on the screen.
Why does YouTube autoplay stop on its own after a while?
Google states that autoplay stops after 30 minutes on mobile data and after 4 hours on Wi-Fi, and that it is off by default for accounts aged 13 to 17. So a session that stopped queueing videos by itself is the documented behaviour rather than a setting that changed.
Can TrueTo turn off YouTube autoplay for me?
Not yet. Neither Autoplay next video nor Playback in feeds 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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One of the two settings is named after the thing you wanted to stop. The other one is the one still playing.