How to Enable or Disable Media Autoplay in Microsoft Edge in Windows 11

Hello Great Dane,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

In Microsoft Edge in Win11, there is a feature to disable media autoplay.

Open Edge - "..." - Settings - Cookies & Site Permissions - Find Media Autoplay - Restrictions "Control whether audio and video on websites are automatically played".

If there is anything not clear, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Best regards,

Bob8 | Microsoft Community Support Specialist.

It's not clear. There is only option to limit or allow media autoplay. Limit leaves it up to Edge to decide when to allow or not allow.

No doubt this is due to Microsoft allegiance to major websites to help promote their advertising by promoting their own news feed, programs etc.

I am happy to see again in Microsoft Community forum.

Currently, only this setting can be used to disable media autoplay in Edge.

You can press Alt+Shift+I in Edge to open Feedback Center, describe your problem in the text box and submit feedback.

Best regards,

Bob8 | Microsoft Community Support Specialist.

If you go to your address bar and type 'edge://flags', then do a search for 'autoplay' you'll see an option to add the menu option of 'block' - not just limit. Now navigate back to that same area in the settings menu and now the 'block' option should be there. Select 'block' and restart your browser. Setting should now be enabled.

Thanks!

This is useless; Bob8 keeps referencing an "option" that doesn't exist. Please, someone, help this person get they act together...

Thanks very much. I wonder why they had to go hide such basic function.

That worked!!! Thank you.

Just found the hidden option. I have not tested it as of this moment, as I just found it and applied it. Of note, Edge is Chromium based and does the same however using chrome in place of edge in the respective address locations does bring up the flags search. Yet the option is still hidden in chrome. So now the ads are forced on you, if you scroll down, the video or ad is in picture-in-picture mode following you. Then when the ad/video content completes, the next ad or video/ad autoplay and isn't even related to the current website story. The viewing area is moved to the top of the page, thus interrupting your reading, and then the user must scroll back down to find their reading spot to continue reading. Very annoying while on lengthy factual articles.

Advertising’s toxic effect on eating and body image | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

according to the above link, the average person is presented with about 3000 ads a day, or a bit over 2 ads a minute. Im sure this is TV, Online, Billboards, Advertising on buses or vehicles, etc. And now online we can't even ignore them. This is how tech turns users away from their platforms.

Some sites still play videos automatically from my experience after setting the hidden option and changing to block in the settings.