How to Auto-Advance and Loop a Presentation in Google Slides

Whether you are presenting a digital portfolio at a conference booth, running promotional announcement boards in an office lobby, or delivering a live training deck, manually clicking or pressing the spacebar to transition through slides is impractical. For automated kiosks and hands-free presentations, Google Slides includes built-in publishing and playback tools that automatically cycle through slides at predefined intervals and continuously loop back to the beginning upon reaching the final slide.

You can set up automated looping in Google Slides through two primary methods: directly within the standard presentation viewer using presentation controls, or by publishing the presentation to the web for self-contained, automated kiosk displays. This guide walks you through both approaches step by step.

Method 1: Auto-Advancing and Looping from the Slides Viewer

If you are connected to a secondary display or projector and want to start an automatic loop immediately from your active browser workspace:

1. Open your presentation in Google Slides.
2. In the top-right corner, click Slideshow (or press Command + Enter on Mac or Ctrl + F5 on Windows) to enter full-screen presentation mode.
3. Move your cursor towards the bottom-left corner of the screen to reveal the presentation toolbar.
4. Click the Options button (represented by three vertical dots).
5. Hover your cursor over Auto-advance (when played).
6. Select your desired slide duration from the list (such as Every 2 seconds, Every 3 seconds, Every 5 seconds, or up to Every minute).
7. Tick the checkbox labelled Loop.
8. Click Play at the top of the Auto-advance sub-menu.

Google Slides will now automatically cycle through every slide according to your chosen timer and seamlessly restart from slide 1 when the presentation ends. To halt the loop at any time, click anywhere on the presentation or press the Pause button in the bottom toolbar.

Method 2: Creating an Autonomous Kiosk Link via Publish to the Web

If you need to display your presentation on an unattended smart TV, digital signage monitor, or public kiosk — or if you want to share a hands-free deck with clients where they do not need to click — publishing the presentation to the web is the cleanest solution:

1. In the Google Slides top menu bar, click File.
2. Hover over Share and select Publish to the web.
3. In the dialogue box, click the Link tab.
4. Under the Auto-advance slides: drop-down menu, choose your preferred timing interval.
5. Tick the box labelled Start slideshow as soon as the player loads.
6. Tick the box labelled Restart the slideshow after the last slide.
7. Click the yellow Publish button (and confirm by clicking OK).
8. Copy the generated web URL.

When you open this URL in any browser, the slideshow launches immediately in a clean, self-playing layout that advances and loops perpetually without requiring user intervention or displaying editor menus.

Customising Auto-Advance Intervals in the Published URL

The standard “Publish to the web” dialogue limits intervals to preset increments. However, you can customise the exact display duration down to the millisecond directly in the generated URL:

1. Examine the published link, which ends with parameters such as &delayms=3000 (where 3000 represents 3 seconds).
2. Edit this number in your address bar to match your required timing. For example, changing the parameter to &delayms=7000 sets the timer to exactly 7 seconds per slide.
3. Press Enter to load your custom-timed kiosk deck.