Tip of the Week: How to Disable Videos in Your Facebook News Feed From Automatically Playing Sound

Facebook has turned up the volume of your timeline with the most recent update to its app. Now, as you scroll through your feed, videos automatically play sound. Given the unpredictability of what video is going to pop up next, it’s likely that you’ll want to disable this setting, and soon.

If you’re running the latest version of the app and you’ve not yet experienced a random video blaring sound loud enough for you and everyone in the room to hear, then you may have your device on silent mode. If you don’t mind having videos play sound as you scroll, then simply adjusting your device’s audio is an easy way to manage this feature. For example, perhaps you want the videos to play sound when you're checking Facebook from the comfort of your home, but not so much when you’re sneaking a peak at Facebook while in a meeting.

To disable this feature altogether, you need to change the settings of the Facebook app. Here’s how you do this in both iOS and Android.

Adjust Facebook’s Settings in Android

• Select the three-lined hamburger icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.
• Scroll down and select App Settings.
• Slide the toggle to off for Videos in News Feed Start With Sound.

Adjust Facebook’s Settings in iOS

• Select the three-lined hamburger icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
• Go to Settings > Account Settings > Sounds.
• Slide the toggle to off for Videos in News Feed Start With Sound.

We should note that Facebook has yet to make available a way to disable news feed sound in this way from your desktop PC. Therefore, to disable news feed sound from your PC, you’ll either have to mute your speakers or dig into your Facebook account settings and disable videos from autoplaying entirely.

If you’ve followed these steps, then your Facebook news feed should now be much quieter, at least as far as actual sound levels are concerned. When it comes to turning down the “noise” coming from the abundance of annoying posts, the only way to remedy this issue is to delete the Facebook app out of your life for good. For assistance with this or adjusting any other settings from the technology you use every day, reach out to vCTO Secure at (206) 895-5595.