Why Stop Safari Auto-Play?
There is little more frustrating than opening a webpage and suddenly having loud audio blast from your speakers because an embedded video started playing automatically. Not only is this disruptive, but it also consumes unnecessary bandwidth and drains your MacBook’s battery faster.
Fortunately, macOS Safari includes robust built-in tools to prevent websites from automatically playing media, giving you full control over when a video starts.
How to Block Auto-Play Videos in Safari
You can configure Safari to block auto-play globally for all websites, or only block videos that include sound.
- Open the Safari browser on your Mac.
- In the top menu bar, click on Safari.
- Select Settings… (or Preferences) from the dropdown menu (or press
Command + ,). - Click on the Websites tab at the top of the Settings window.
- In the left-hand sidebar, scroll down and click on Auto-Play.
- Look at the bottom right corner of the window for the dropdown menu labelled When visiting other websites:.
- Click the dropdown menu and select Never Auto-Play.
Exceptions for Specific Sites
If you have YouTube or another video site open in a background tab, you will see it listed in the main panel above the global setting. You can choose to allow auto-play specifically for that site while keeping all other websites blocked.
By selecting “Never Auto-Play,” Safari will immediately pause all embedded videos across the web, displaying a play button over them. The video will only start when you intentionally click on it.