How to Turn Off YouTube’s Annoying Auto Playing Thumbnails on Android

Android: YouTube now shows video previews in the Home panel, which uses up data and is otherwise just annoying. Thankfully, you can turn them off.

First, tap your profile picture at the top-right, then tap Settings > Data Saving.

Toggle off the switch for “Muted Playback in Feeds Over Wi-Fi Only.” It sounds like this would allow the videos to auto play over any data connection, but that’s not the case.

It makes sense that YouTube would add a feature like this, because it gives users a very clear idea of what the video in question is going to be, but at the same time it’s easy to see why users might find this annoying.

Thanks to my friend Nancy Messieh at MakeUseOf for pointing this out to me.