There are times when you may want to prevent videos and GIFs from automatically playing in your social media feeds. This could be because you’re trying to conserve cellular data, limit the addictiveness of these apps, or maintain better control over your viewing experience, as when a video is going viral that you don’t wish to see. Whatever the reason might be, here are the steps to turn off autoplaying videos and GIFs on popular social media platforms.
To turn off autoplay on Facebook, navigate to your profile picture icon, which appears in the top right corner of the desktop version or in the bottom navigation bar of the mobile app. Then, scroll down to “Settings & Privacy,” then select “Preferences,” where you’ll find a menu option for “Media.” Within that menu, there is an option to toggle video playback in your Feed and in Stories. Select the “Never” option.
The quick path: Settings > Preferences > Media > Video Playback > Never.
On the Instagram app, tap your profile picture in the bottom-right corner. Once you’re on your profile page, tap the menu icon in the upper right corner of your screen (it’s the icon with three horizontal lines). Then, scroll to “Settings and activity,” then navigate to “Your app and media,” where you’ll find “Media quality.” From there, you can toggle on the option to “Use less cellular data.”
This isn’t as foolproof as a “don’t autoplay content” setting, but it will at least slow things down if you’re off Wi-Fi. Instagram also w …