How to Disable Auto-play for Videos in Facebook

If you have Facebook on your phone or tablet then you’re not alone. Recent figures revealed by Facebook shows it has over 100 million daily mobile users in the US alone and a global mobile daily active user count of over 450 million. That a lot of mobile users. Previously all those Facebook users had to click the play button in order to play an uploaded video but since March Facebook has changed their settings so as videos in your news feed play automatically. Its not surprising as Facebook makes huge amounts of money from advertising, so naturally they want you to see those add videos. Isn’t that nice of them.

If like me you have a limited data package each month then you don’t really want to waste it or even worse, incur charges for videos that you may not even be watching or that are just plain advertising so here is how you can turn them off.

On iOS devices.

Go to Settings > Facebook > Settings. Under the Video section, turn on “Auto-play on WiFi only.”

On Android devices

If you’re using the Facebook app on an Android device you need to open the application first.

Go to App Settings from within the Facebook app, then check the box next to “Auto-play videos on WiFi only.”

Disable Auto-play videos on your desktop/ laptop

To disable auto-playing videos on your desktop on laptop, firstly, navigate to your Settings page, and then click the video tab on the left.

Click the drop down menu next to the Auto-Play Videos option. Remember: If you want to change this setting for your mobile devices, you need to update those settings separately.

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