However, Google took mercy on us and at least gave us the ability to turn off YouTube autoplay. Additionally,you maynot know that you can also turn off YouTube autoplay when youre watching videos, so another video doesnt start to play when your current video is over.
Heres how to turn off YouTube autoplay for both situations.
How to turn off YouTube autoplay even if youre watching a video
Step 1: Open up the YouTube app. If this is your first time opening it since the autoplay rollout, you might see a notification like the one at the bottom of my screen:
Step 2: If you see that notification, you can either hit Got It and it will go away, or click Settings and it will take you to the area where you can turn off YouTube autoplay. For those of you that got the notification, hit Settings and skip ahead two paragraphs. For those of you that didnt, click your avatar icon in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.
Step 3: After clicking your avatar icon, youll be taken to your account page. Yours might look a bit different if you dont subscribe to YouTube Red, but similar options will be on your page. Hit the Settings link.
Step 4: Once youre on the Settings page, its pretty obvious what to do next. Hit the Autoplay option.
Step 5: This is where you can turn off YouTube autoplay. The first option on the list is for controlling whether or not YouTube plays another video after youve finished watching one. I personally dislike this feature, so I have that toggled off.
The second option is how to turn off YouTube autoplay on the homepage. Theres no toggle though, so tap the text and youll see this notification box:
Notes: Always On is the default option. If you select Wi-Fi Only, videos will autoplay on the homepage but not if youre on a cellular data connection. Autoplaying videos eats up bandwidth, which is one of the leading complaints about the feature in general, so this option is likely to appease a lot of detractors.
Of course, the last option is to turn off YouTube autoplay entirely. If thats what youre looking for, go ahead and select that.
And thats it! While the autoplay feature might not be your cup of tea, good on Google for giving us the option to turn it off. Lets keep our fingers crossed that it doesnt remove the option somewhere down the line.