As you scroll through the Google Play Store looking for new applications, you will often encounter promotional videos embedded directly into app listings. By default, Google Play is configured to automatically play these videos as soon as they appear on your screen. While this can provide a quick preview of gameplay or app features, it can also be highly disruptive if you are in a quiet environment, and it needlessly consumes your mobile data allowance. Fortunately, you can easily disable this auto-play behaviour.
How to Stop Videos from Auto-Playing
Disabling auto-play videos is a simple settings toggle within the Google Play app. You can choose to turn them off completely, or allow them to play only when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network.
- Open the Google Play Store app on your Android smartphone or tablet.
- Tap on your profile picture (or initial) located in the top-right corner of the search bar.
- From the pop-up menu that appears, tap on Settings.
- In the Settings menu, tap on the Network preferences section to expand it.
- Tap on Auto-play videos.
- A small dialogue box will appear with three options:
- Auto-play videos at any time: This is the default setting, which uses mobile data.
- Auto-play videos over Wi-Fi only: This saves your mobile data but still plays videos when connected to a wireless network.
- Don’t auto-play videos: This completely stops all videos from playing automatically.
- Select Don’t auto-play videos.
- Tap OK to confirm your selection.
Once disabled, when you visit an app listing that features a video, you will only see a static thumbnail with a play button overlay. You can still watch the video at any time by manually tapping the play button, giving you complete control over your data usage and audio environment.