The Unwanted Floating Window
Picture in Picture (PiP) is a feature in iOS that allows a video to continue playing in a small, floating thumbnail box after you leave the application. By default, this feature is set to trigger automatically. If you are watching a YouTube video or a Twitch stream in full screen and you swipe up from the bottom of your iPhone to check a text message on your home screen, the video will instantly shrink down and follow you. While some users love multitasking, others find this behavior incredibly intrusive, as the floating box often covers up the exact icons they are trying to tap. If you prefer your videos to simply stop playing when you close the app, you must turn this automation off.
How to Turn Off Automatic PiP
You can revoke the operating system’s permission to automatically shrink videos via the General settings.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap on General.
- Tap on Picture in Picture.
- You will see a toggle switch labeled Start PiP Automatically.
- Tap the switch to turn it Off (the green background will disappear).
Restoring Manual Control
The change takes effect immediately. Now, when you are watching a video and swipe up to return to your home screen, the video will instantly stop and the app will close cleanly, exactly as it did on older versions of iOS. Importantly, turning this setting off does not break the feature entirely. If you ever want a video to float on your screen, you can still manually tap the small “Picture in Picture” icon located directly inside the video player controls of most streaming apps.