How to Stop Videos from Automatically Playing On Instagram

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2021-05-20
Jide Mbaka

How to Stop Videos from Automatically Playing On Instagram

Instagram's video autoplay is one of those core features that are here to stay.  As you scroll through your Instagram feed, you'll see crisp photos of different people, but suddenly a video in the feed will just start playing by itself. This auto-playing of videos is one of the reasons for the high data consumption on Instagram. At launch, Instagram offered a feature to turn off its video autoplay settings, however, you probably can’t do the same now. But is that true? Are we really unable to disable video autoplay on Instagram? Absolutely no!

There are various ways to stop videos from playing automatically on Instagram if it's annoying you. Perhaps you want to get rid of autoplay because it eats up mobile data quickly, drains your battery, or clogs your phone memory.

For whichever reason you want to stop videos from auto-playing on Instagram, this guide will help you.

1. How to stop videos from auto-playing on the Instagram app

If you’re looking for a way to completely stop videos from playing automatically on the official Instagram app, then you’re probably out of luck. Instagram doesn’t offer such a feature, but you can conserve data by turning on Data Saver in the app setting.

During our usage, the Data Saver feature didn’t seem to stop videos from auto-playing on Instagram but reduces the video quality, though the text beneath the Data Saver says "When Data Saver is turned on, videos won't load in advance to help you use fewer data."

So, if you want to save some data while the videos keep playing automatically, you can turn on the Data Saver feature. Otherwise, you can jump to the second solution in this article.

If you’re cool with the Data Saver feature, you can follow the steps below to enable it.

How to Turn on Data Saver on Instagram

  • Open the Instagram
  • Tap your profile picture in the bottom-right corner.
  • Select Cellular Data Use
  • Turn on Data Saver and ensure “High-Resolution Media” is set to Wifi only or

Additionally, turning on Data Saver will mute videos on the Instagram Feed by default. You can tap on videos to Mute or unmute it. Instagram will remember your last action as you continue scrolling on the feed.

2. How to Stop Videos from Auto-Playing on Instagram Completely Using a Browser

If Instagram's so-called "Data Saver" feature doesn't meet your needs – of course, we found nothing helpful there, as it still plays videos automatically anyway, try using Instagram on your web browser.

Just like Facebook and many other social media apps, Instagram has a web app, and it works flawlessly like the official mobile app. By default, the web app doesn't auto-play videos, so you don't have to toggle or set up anything.

The downside that might stop you from ditching the Instagram app is because the web app lacks some core Instagram features like the in-built camera features and Instagram Reels. But you can always use the regular Instagram app anytime you need those features.

If you really want to stop videos from auto-playing on Instagram – may be to save your mobile data, we suggest you use the web app when you're on a capped mobile data and use the regular Instagram app when you're connected to an unmetered Wi-Fi network. That should solve the problem.

In a nutshell, it's possible to stop videos from auto-playing on Instagram if you use the web app. Here's how:

How to Stop Videos From Auto-Playing On Instagram With The Web App

  • Open your web browser on your phone. (preferably Chrome)
  • Go to instagram.com to open the Instagram website.
  • Sign in to your Instagram account. Or, if you’re logged in to Facebook on the browser already, you may log in directly.
  • You should be able to scroll through your Instagram feed now without those videos playing automatically.
  • You can tap on any video on the feed to play it manually.

How to Install the Instagram Web App on Your Phone

If you’re using Chrome for Android, you may want to install the Instagram Web app on your phone directly instead of opening the browser any time you wish to stop videos from auto-playing on Instagram. This will install an app on your phone. You can launch it from your app drawer or home screen, and it won't feel like you're using Chrome.

Here’s how to do it:

  • After signing in to Instagram on Chrome for the first time, you'll receive a prompt to install the web app. Tap Add to home screen to install the app.
  • Alternatively, if you missed the first prompt, you can install the Instagram web app manually using these steps:
  • When you’re on the Instagram website on Chrome, tap the 3-dot button at the top-right corner.
  • Select Install app from the side menu
  • Tap
  • You’ll see the second Instagram app icon in your drawer. You can launch it anytime to open the web app.