How to Turn Off Autoplay Previews on Every Service

Netflix does not have an autoplay setting. It has two, and switching off the one you find first leaves the other running. Autoplay previews is the trailer that starts while you are browsing. Autoplay next episode is the countdown that pulls you into the following episode. They sit in the same screen and neither one affects the other.

Both are stored per profile rather than per account, and so is the equivalent pair on Disney+. Turn previews off on your own profile and every other profile on the account carries on playing them. That is what people are usually describing when they say the setting did not save.

Below is where each service keeps its controls, and the two places where no control exists. The trailer that starts at full volume while you are reading a synopsis is the most irritating default in streaming, and on Prime Video's television apps there is still no switch for it.

Netflix

Netflix has two separate settings and turning off one does nothing to the other.

Autoplay previews is the trailer that starts while you are browsing. Autoplay next episode is the countdown that pulls you into the following episode. Both are stored per profile, not per account.

In a browser

1. Sign in and open your Account page.
2. Select Profiles, then click the profile you want to change.
3. Open Playback settings.
4. Untick Autoplay previews while browsing on all devices, Autoplay next episode in a series on all devices, or both.
5. Select Save.

On the mobile app

1. Tap My Netflix at the bottom right.
2. Tap your profile name at the top of the screen.
3. Tap Manage Profiles.
4. Select the profile you want to change.
5. Turn off the Autoplay Previews toggle.
6. On iPhone and iPad, tap Done.

Two things worth knowing before you conclude it did not work. Netflix's own documentation notes that a change made on the web may not reach a device until you switch profiles and back, or sign out and in again. And iPads, along with some older televisions and streaming devices, do not support preview autoplay at all, so on those the setting is absent rather than hidden.

Disney+

The control sits with the profile rather than in a global settings screen.

1. Open the profile menu at the top right.
2. Choose Edit Profiles.
3. Select the profile you want to change.
4. Turn off Autoplay to stop the next episode countdown.
5. Turn off Background Video to stop the looping preview behind the artwork on the home screen.

These are two different settings and both are per profile, which matters on an account where children's profiles were set up separately.

Prime Video

1. Open Settings.
2. Select Player.
3. Turn off Autoplay next episode.

That setting stops the next-episode countdown. It does not stop the trailers that play while you browse, which is a separate behaviour on Prime Video and the one this article opened with.

Being plain about it: Prime Video exposes no switch for browse-screen previews on its television apps. The web player is quieter by default, and muting at the device level is the only workaround on a television. That is unsatisfying, and it is the answer.

Apple TV+

Apple keeps this at the system level rather than inside the app, which is why searching the app is fruitless.

On an Apple TV box:

1. Open Settings from the home screen.
2. Select Apps.
3. Select TV.
4. Adjust the autoplay options listed there.

On iPhone or iPad:

1. Open the system Settings app, not the TV app.
2. Scroll to and select TV.
3. Adjust the autoplay options.

HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+ and Peacock

All four offer some form of autoplay control in account or playback settings, and all four have moved it more than once.

For these four, do not follow a menu path from an article, including this one. Open settings and search for the word autoplay instead. These layouts change more often than the guides describing them do, so a search finds the current location and a memorised path finds where it used to be.

The one nobody can turn off

Preview video on the home screen of several television platforms, as opposed to inside the app, is a function of the platform rather than the service. On some devices there is no setting for it. If the noise is the problem rather than the video, muting at the device level is the only workaround, which is unsatisfying but honest.

While you are in there

Two neighbouring settings are worth the same trip. The thumbnails that services pick for episodes can give away plot points, and there are limited but real ways to reduce that. And the Continue Watching row holds on to abandoned titles indefinitely, which every major service now lets you clear out properly.

If your reason for turning autoplay off is that previews spoil things, it is also worth knowing how the services structure their browse pages, since the genre codes behind Netflix's rows let you skip the promoted carousels entirely.