The Sudden Noise
One of the most universally frustrating experiences on the modern web is opening a news article or a blog post in Safari on your Mac, only to be instantly bombarded by loud audio from a video advertisement playing automatically in the corner of the screen. Not only is this highly disruptive—especially if you are in a quiet office or working late at night—but it also consumes unnecessary system bandwidth and drains your MacBook’s battery. While Apple has implemented some aggressive blocking measures over the years, many websites still find workarounds to force auto-playing media upon load.
Enforcing a Strict Block Policy
To permanently stop websites from hijacking your speakers and bandwidth, you must configure Safari’s global website preferences to aggressively block all media from playing automatically without your explicit consent.
Open the Safari browser on your Mac. In the top menu bar, click on Safari (next to the Apple logo) and select Settings (or Preferences on older macOS versions). In the new window that appears, look at the row of icons across the top and click on the Websites tab. On the left-hand sidebar, scroll down until you see the option labelled Auto-Play. Click on it. Look at the bottom-right corner of the window for the dropdown menu labelled When visiting other websites:. Click this menu and change the setting to Never Auto-Play. This enforces a strict, global ban. Above this, you will see a list of currently open websites; you can optionally configure exceptions here, but setting the global rule ensures that no new website will ever blast audio or video at you automatically again.