Desktop Web [Desktop web] I can't disable media autoplay. I turn it off, and when I come back the setting is on. I tried old.reddit and it doesn't work either.

49 Upvotes

permalink
reddit

You are about to leave Redlib

Do you want to continue?

https://www.reddit.com/r/bugs/comments/1i6kngd/desktop_web_i_cant_disable_media_autoplay_i_turn/
No, go back! Yes, take me to Reddit

100% Upvoted

u/CutestLoaf Apr 14 '25 edited Apr 14 '25

Hey, it is possible to turn it off, but it's a bit of a pain (1-2 minutes). Go to your settings where the autoplay setting is. Hit F12 on your keyboard and go to the Network tab.

Enable and disable the Show recommendations in home feed a few times, you start seeing a bunch of requests appear in the DevTools window (That you opened with F12) that's name is "graphql".

Choose one of these newly appeared graphql requests, doesn't matter which. Right click on them, go to Copy and then choose PowerShell.

Open any text editor on your PC, and hit CTRL+V (Or right click and Paste). This is the network request that was sent to change the Show recommendations in home feed settings.

The bottom line is starting with -Body, in this line find the word isFeedRecommendationsEnabled. Replace this word with isVideoAutoplayEnabled. After this word you can see true or false, if it's true change it to false.

CTRL+A and then CTRL+C (or select everything and right click + copy)

Open PowerShell on your PC (Windows button and type PowerShell (Choose PowerShell, not PowerShell ISE).

Right click anywhere in the black area, this way you can paste your new request into the terminal.

You will see a popup if you really want to paste it, as it has multiple lines, choose yes / Paste anyways.

Hit Enter after it's done pasting. And you are done.

----------------

The setting in your Reddit options will not change (Thank you for this pile of garbage Reddit), but after seeing any post with videos you will see that autoplay is indeed disabled. I had to do this as my browsers disable autoplay option couldn't disable it entirely on Reddit.

Notes:

In Firefox there is an Edit & resend option when you copy a request, it would be handy for this, except it doesn't fucking work, because it puts a tag at the end of the URL that you can't remove so Reddit refuses the request.

This issue seem to affect random accounts, not all of my accounts are affected and even on the affected accounts the behavior is different with certain browsers.

1

u/SwitchMaro1 Apr 22 '25

Thank you, I hope there is way for iPhone?

1

u/CutestLoaf Apr 22 '25

Are you using it via the Reddit app or via a browser and just visit reddit.com? If the latter you can just do it on a PC and it should affect your mobile too. If it's via the app the autoplay settings are separate, so if it's bugged there too you are kinda out of lock. You can look into if there are any 3rd party clients for iOS or if you can use a MITM proxy (I have zero experience with iOS, so I have no idea, but Google should give u a few answers on the topic) to the method I described for PC.

1

u/SwitchMaro1 Apr 22 '25

Yes use the application . Maybe I just have to wait. Anyway I have reported the error/bug in /bugs

1

u/SwitchMaro1 Apr 22 '25

Appreciate your effort and time to help

1

u/greentrancer1 May 15 '25

It worked like a charm, thank you so much!

1

u/CutestLoaf May 15 '25

<3

1

u/kartu3 May 19 '25

isVideoAutoplayEnabled trick works, thanks a lot.

1

u/smadeus May 24 '25

Sound more like 5-10 minute job rather than 1-2 minute job. :D

1

u/hereforginger May 24 '25

if you had a version of this for mac that would be twice as helpful !! if not, thanks anyway for taking the time !

1

u/CutestLoaf May 24 '25

Hey, the request that needs to be sent is the same, but unfortunately I can't help you on how to send it with a Mac. Maybe try to Google around or copy the link to this comment ( https://www.reddit.com/r/bugs/comments/1i6kngd/comment/mn4pu3x/ ) and try to send it to a tech savvy friend who already used a Mac (I did never).

1

u/bitconvoy Aug 31 '25

Exactly the same steps, just instead of PowerShell, you use cURL (it might need to be installed first)

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

Thanks, going to try this

1

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

You are my hero! It worked a treat - be interesting to see if it is a lasting fix.
I suspect Reddit devs want videos to autoplay so that they can have autoplaying ads...

1

u/CutestLoaf Jul 09 '25

Glad it helped! I would assume that it's a lasting fix, they could've just removed the button if this were done on purpose, I think it's just Reddit's incompetence for breaking it and not fixing it for such a long time.

1

u/TheSpikyRedOne Jul 19 '25

You're doing the Lord's work, thank you!

1

u/CutestLoaf Jul 20 '25

<3
1
u/bitconvoy Aug 31 '25
Thanks a lot! A few hints for people who are struggling with it.

In your DevTools, click on XHR to filter for the relevant requests.

Below is a screenshot of what you will be looking for in the DevTools (screenshot from Firefox).

On Windows, you will use Copy as PowerShell, on Linux, Mac, or WSL, you can use Copy as cURL. Install curl if you don't have it yet.

Then paste the copied text into a text or code editor and replace the text as u/CutestLoaf described. You should end up with something like this (Linux/Mac example):
curl 'https://www.reddit.com/svc/shreddit/graphql' \
  --compressed \
  -X POST \
  -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:142.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/142.0' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5' \
  -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br, zstd' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Referer: https://www.reddit.com/settings/preferences' \
  -H 'Origin: https://www.reddit.com' \
  -H 'Sec-GPC: 1' \
  -H 'Sec-Fetch-Dest: empty' \
  -H 'Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors' \
  -H 'Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin' \
  -H 'Connection: keep-alive' \
  -H 'Cookie: edgebucket=4hFC90Yrv00GEkhgNC; [lots of text here]' \
  -H 'DNT: 1' \
  -H 'Priority: u=0' \
  -H 'TE: trailers' \
  --data-raw '{"operation":"UpdateAccountPreferences","variables":{"input":{"isVideoAutoplayEnabled":false}},"csrf_token":"[your token]"}'
Now copy this and paste it into your terminal, then hit enter and you should be good.
1

u/Ifalna_Shayoko Sep 23 '25

Worked nicely. Thank you.

Hilarious that the developers of this site are too incompetent to make such a simple option work normally after this issue persisting for YEARS.

1

u/voldemarz Nov 08 '25

Thank you! Have had this issue for yours. Figured to search if anyone has has managed to fix this and found your post.

I am on Kubuntu 24.04. For anyone stumbling on this. You can install powershell on Linux as well - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell-on-linux?view=powershell-7.5

1

u/Professional_Pie7091 Nov 17 '25

Thank you! This should have infinitely more upvotes. Unfortunately I can only provide one.

1

u/fyled Nov 20 '25

THANK YOU! Unfortunately the checkbox is still on even after disabling it using the curl/powershell method, but rest assured the autoplay is indeed disabled.

1

u/NorbiPerv Jan 23 '26

thanks, indeed, i just struggled this to set this false with curl, and only after your comment I realised only that the switch even does not show when it is disabled already. reddit is such a garbage.

1

u/S1lentA0 Feb 05 '26

My hero

1

u/ReggieCorneus Feb 12 '26

Thank you so much. The various ways Reddit is borken is hilarious.

1

u/EnjayK Apr 02 '26

You're a lifesaver!

Desktop Web [Desktop web] I can't disable media autoplay. I turn it off, and when I come back the setting is on. I tried old.reddit and it doesn't work either.

You are about to leave Redlib