Enable or Disable Media Autoplay in Microsoft Edge

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How to Enable or Disable Media Autoplay in Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge is the default web browser app in Windows 10. It's a Chromium-based app which has extension support, a fast rendering engine and a simplified user interface where Google's services are replaced with similar from Microsoft. It comes with an option that allows preventing web sites from automatically playing videos. Here is how to enable or disable it.

As you may remember, the classic Microsoft Edge app had a set of features to block autoplaying media content on web pages. Starting in Edge 78.0.272.0, the same features are available in the Chromium-based version of the Edge browser.

Media Autoplay Options

Options are as follows:

  • “Allow” is the default and will continue to play videos when a tab is first viewed in the foreground, at the site’s discretion.
  • “Limit“ will restrict autoplay to only work when videos are muted, so you‘re never surprised by sound. Once you click anywhere on the page, autoplay is re-enabled, and will continue to be allowed within that domain in that tab.

Also, there was one more option, “Block”.

“Block” will prevent autoplay on all sites until you interact with the media content. Note that this may break some sites due to the strict enforcement – you may need to click multiple times for some video or audio to play correctly.

Edge hides the Block option from the user, but it is possible to make it visible. In this post we will learn how to access it, too.

To Enable or Disable Media Autoplay in Microsoft Edge,

  1. Click on the menu button with three dots, or press Alt+F.
  2. Click on the Settings item.
  3. Go to in Settings > Site Permissions.
  4. On the right, click on Media autoplay.
  5. On the next page, set the option Control if audio and video play automatically on sites to Allow or Limit, according to what you want.

You are done.

Now, if you are not happy with the two options provided by Edge, and want to block media autoplay, do the following steps.

To re-enable the Media AutoPlay Block Option in Microsoft Edge,

  1. Open Microsoft Edge Chromium.
  2. Type edge://flags/#edge-autoplay-user-setting-block-option into the address bar and hit the Enter key.
  3. Enable the flag Show block option in autoplay settings using the drop-down menu next to the flag name.
  4. Relaunch the browser when prompted.

This will restore the option.

Actual Edge Versions


Download Microsoft Edge

You can download pre-release Edge version for Insiders from here:

Download Microsoft Edge Insider Preview

The stable version of the browser is available on the following page:

Download Microsoft Edge Stable

 

 

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

2 thoughts on “Enable or Disable Media Autoplay in Microsoft Edge”

  1. That’s great, thank you. I love this feature from FireFox. Now if only there was a way to keep opening shortcuts from a bookmark menu without it being closed (can be don in Firefox flags).

  2. This solution only partially works – as soon as you “interact with the site” (i.e. scroll down to read a news story) embedded videos will autoplay

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