Block Auto-playing Videos in Safari on macOS High Sierra

With the long-awaited release of iOS 11, Apple also rolled out its OS update for Mac. The final version of macOS High Sierra was finally rolled out a few days after iOS 11 was released. Though macOS High Sierra did not get the same response as iOS 11, there are still many things which are impressive. While there are many features that are unnoticed by the users, there are some that did managed to get some limelight. Out of the many improvements and enhancements, Apple’s very own Safari browser too has gone through improvements.

Until now there was no method to stop the auto-playing videos in Safari. We had no control over them, However, with macOS High Sierra, there finally is a solution to the frustration. The videos can now be blocked from being auto-played. Well, if you too get disturbed by these videos and want to disable them, you are at the right place.

This article will walk you through the steps to block the videos that auto-play in Safari on macOS High Sierra:

Stop Auto-playing Videos in Safari Browser

With macOS High Sierra you finally have the ability to block auto-playing videos on any website in Safari browser.

The feature can be enabled one at a time for individual sites or it can be applied to all the sites at once.

However, I personally prefer enabling it individually for different sites. This article will cover both the methods one at a time:

Block Auto-play Videos in Safari for Individual Websites

1. Launch Safari browser and then load the website where you want to stop videos being auto-played. Once you have the website, right click on the address bar. From the drop-down menu locate Settings for This Website and tap on it.
2. Here from the drop-down menu, click next to where Auto-Play its written.
3. You will be presented with three options to choose from. The three option are:

• Allow All Auto-Play, which is the default setting.
• Stop Media with Sound and,
• Never Auto-Play.

While the second option lets you disable the videos with audio the last one lets you disable any kind of video from being auto-played.

4. If you do not want any kind of video to the played, simply go with the last option, i.e. Never Auto-Play.

Disable Auto-playing Videos in Safari for All Websites

1. Launch Safari and then open the Preferences pane from the drop-down menu.
2. From Preferences, tap on Websites. Now select Auto-Play from the left panel.
3.  Now, on the bottom right corner, there is an option which says When visiting other websites: followed by a drop-down menu to its right.
4. By default Stop Media with Sound option is selected. However, you can choose any other option from the three discussed earlier.

One point that needs to be mentioned here is that sites where the settings were applied individually, they will not appear in the universal settings.

Apart from the other features being improvised in macOS High Sierra update, disabling auto-playing videos from Safari is useful. At least, users can now get a sigh of relief from those nonstop videos being auto-played.