This is how you block videos from playing automatically in Safari on High Sierra

It’s a common problem in the web browser: videos that just start playing. Safari in macOS High Sierra allows you to block autoplay.

Block videos from playing automatically

Although hardly anyone is waiting for it, there are still websites that automatically play their videos. That is often not very pleasant for users, because audio just starts playing somewhere in a tab that may have already been clicked away. In addition, it is a barrier to get to the core of the opened page. You must first click away the video before you can read undisturbed.

Apple has also heard these complaints and offers a solution from Safari 11 for macOS High Sierra.

Turn off auto-playing videos

If you come to a website that automatically plays videos and you don’t want that to happen again in the future, then follow the steps below.

1. Click with the right mouse button (or via ctrl + click) on the url bar;
2. Select ‘Settings for this website’;
3. A window will appear below the url bar, click on the box behind ‘Autoplay’;
4. Choose from three options: ‘Allow automatic play of everything’, ‘Stop media with sound’ or ‘Never play automatically’.

With this option, the video players will still remain on the website, but they will no longer play automatically. You can always click on them yourself to view them. Of course you can always undo the setting.

Block all automatic videos

If you are not on a website that automatically plays a video, but you still want to prevent certain sites from showing them, follow the steps below.

1. Within Safari, go to ‘Safari> Preferences’;
2. Select ‘Websites’ in the list of icons at the top of the window;
3. Click on ‘Autoplay’;
4. Here are the websites that have already been adjusted, you can also adjust settings for the entire web here;
5. Click on the box behind ‘When visiting other websites’ at the bottom right;
6. If you choose ‘Never play automatically’, videos on any website will not play automatically.

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