Prevent Facebook Videos From Playing Sound Automatically

Facebook Video Autoplaying Issue

In its never-ending drive to make your life “better” (where “better” is a very subjective term), Facebook has updated its mobile app to include a function that automatically plays a sound when a video begins. If you’d prefer to disable this obnoxious feature, follow these steps.

The Facebook app informed users of the new functionality with the following splash screen, which helpfully notes that when videos begin playing in the News Feed, the sound will be turned on.

However, this is much more difficult to manage because of how Facebook manages noise in the News Feed. If you have this feature enabled, each time you scroll past a video, the audio will begin playing immediately, regardless of whether or not you are connected to a video.

Alternatively, if you disable this feature, you must press the audio icon located in the bottom right corner of the screen in order to start playing audio. Afterwards, it will automatically turn on the audio for each subsequent video you watch until you turn it off in the settings once more. Annoying?

Regardless, if you want to fight back against the tide of noisy Facebook videos, tap the menu icon in the top right corner of the Facebook app.

Scroll down and tap Settings, then choose App Settings.

At the top of the screen, disable the toggle that says “Videos in News Feed Start With Sound.”

Following that, you should be greeted with blissful quiet while navigating through your News Feed videos until you engage with a video. If the sound begins to play, press the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the video to ensure that Facebook understands that you do not want your videos to talk unless they are addressed.

Remember, if you do turn on sound for a video, you’ll have to repeat the above steps to turn the sound off again.