How to Turn Off Auto-Playing Thumbnail Preview on YouTube

Based on who you ask, YouTube’s thumbnail preview that auto-plays videos while scrolling is either a boon or bane. The feature lets users take a sneak peek at the video’s content while hovering over the thumbnail. However, not everyone likes seeing a dynamic video when they are browsing the feed. It gets even more annoying on mobile, where you can scrub through the video and enable the audio from the auto-playing thumbnail preview. So if you are someone who wants to stop YouTube videos from playing while scrolling, here’s how to turn off thumbnail preview on YouTube.

Turn Off Thumbnail Preview on YouTube (2022)

Turn Off Thumbnail Preview on YouTube (Android and iOS)

1. Open the YouTube app on your phone and tap the profile icon at the top-right corner. Now, select “Settings” to access YouTube settings.

access youtube settings

2. Tap on “General” under settings and choose “Playback in feeds” to control YouTube’s home feed autoplay.

3. From the pop-up that appears, choose to turn “Off” playback in feeds, and that’s it. The video thumbnails will no longer autoplay when you are scrolling through the feed.

Disable Autoplay Thumbnail Preview on YouTube Website

1. Open YouTube and click your profile picture in the top-right corner. When the pop-up menu appears, click on “Settings”.

2. Now, switch to the “Playback and performance” settings section from the left sidebar.

3. Here, disable the “Inline playback” toggle to stop videos from playing when you hover over them in YouTube’s home feed.

Disable Autoplay Video Previews on YouTube

So, those are the steps involved to disable autoplay on YouTube. Meanwhile, if you want to delete your YouTube history, you can check our linked article. And for more such tips, do not forget to take a look at our article on the best YouTube tricks you should know.

#Tags
Comments 6
  • Hawk says:

    And then, it resets the next time you open your browser.

  • Tom C says:

    As a google part, they never respect user choices…google aka biggest forcers ever, got thumbnail preview although it is set for a long time in no inline playback…same thing with their bad mixes, u can tell everyday you’re not interested, they dont care, they try to force u anyway

  • Sayan says:

    Bugatti short

  • Me says:

    Thank you

  • Jax says:

    I did this on my desktop Mac, disabled Inline playback…the damn thumbnails are still playing back. How do you stop this?

  • Aaron Brand says:

    When I view settings I don’t see any of these options. I see “Your YouTube channel” and “ Your account,” neither of which has the “general” option. What am I doing wrong?

Leave a Reply