Often it happens that we just open YouTube to go through the feed and automatically each video in the feed starts playing without even tapping on it. Maybe it is convenient for many as it has its advantages, but most of the others out there don’t like it at all. And they just want to disable it. Well, is it possible? If yes, what are the steps to turn off automatic thumbnail preview on YouTube?
Yes, it is possible to disable YouTube’s automatic thumbnail preview. So, if you are also frustrated with this automatic thumbnail preview and want to disable it, here you will find the way to do so. Nothing tricky, you just have to follow the given steps to turn off the automatic thumbnail preview on YouTube.
Before You Start: What is YouTube Automatic Thumbnail Preview?
YouTube, the world’s leading video-sharing platform, constantly introduces new features and enhancements to enhance user experience. One such feature is an Automatic Thumbnail Preview, which allows videos to play automatically as you go through your YouTube feed whether you are on your smartphone or PC.
While scrolling on a smartphone, each video that comes on the screen starts playing automatically. Similarly, on PC, each video in the YouTube feed starts playing on which you point the cursor. While this feature can be convenient in certain situations, it can also be a source of frustration for many users who simply want to browse their feeds without interruptions.
The benefits of this feature that can make you love it are; you can have an overview of the video without clicking on it, help you to discover new content on YouTube, and let you watch YouTube videos without ads. And for creators, it increases their reach graph and helps in gaining more views.
On the other hand, talking about its drawbacks, you can include distraction, limited control, battery consumption, wastage of data, etc. Nevertheless, you are here. It means you don’t want this feature, so let’s move forward to the process of deactivating the automatic thumbnail preview on YouTube.
How To Turn Off Automatic Thumbnail Preview on YouTube
As mentioned earlier, YouTube allows you to deactivate the automatic preview of thumbnails. The procedure of disabling this feature in smartphones and PCs is straightforward, but quite different as well.
Well, the procedure is explained separately for smartphones and desktops. By following the step-by-step instructions below, you’ll be able to turn off the automatic thumbnail preview on YouTube and enjoy a more seamless and customized YouTube feed.
Turn Off YouTube Thumbnail Preview on the Smartphone
Smartphone users have to follow these given steps to disable YouTube’s automatic thumbnail preview.
Step 1. Open the YouTube app and tap on the profile icon, which you can see in the top right corner.
Step 2. Look for the Settings option and tap on that.
Step 3. There is the first option, General. Click on that.
Step 4. Here you can see the Playback in feeds option. You have to tap on it.
Step 5. As you click, three options will appear there, Always on, WiFi only, and Off. Just choose Off.
Note: The Always-on option is already selected here. Now, you have to change it and select the Off option here. You can also choose WiFi only, which means the thumbnail preview will be active only if you are using data from a WiFi connection. And it will be disabled while you are using your personal internet data.
Here you have successfully disabled the Automatic Thumbnail Preview on YouTube. You can go back and check that videos will not start playing in the feed until or unless you tap on them.
How to Turn Off YouTube Automatic Thumbnail Preview on PC?
If you use a PC and want to know how you can turn off automatic thumbnail preview on YouTube on a desktop, you have to follow these steps.
Step 1. Open YouTube on your desktop, tap on your profile in the top right corner, and then click on the Setting option. This option will be available only if you have logged in with your ID.
Also, you can look for the same option, Setting, on the left side menu on YouTube’s home page. There, you will have to scroll down to find this option.
Step 2. Here you can see multiple options on the left side menu. Tap on the Playback and Performance option.
Step 3. In Playback and Performance, scroll down to the last setting, Browsing. There is an option, Inline Playback. The toggle is on here; you have to turn it off. Now, you have disabled the automatic thumbnail preview on YouTube on PC.
Verdict Words
As you can see, the feature of auto-playing thumbnail preview on YouTube is an optional feature. You have complete freedom whether you want to keep it activated or not. And YouTube allows you to customize this feature on smartphones and PC, both devices. Although, the feature is available with a different name on the PC but works like it works on a smartphone.
