Pause video on new tab

[Quitch]

On Firefox if you open a YouTube video in a new tab, the video is paused when you switch to the tab. Is there a way to enable that same behaviour in Microsoft Edge?

 

[Paladin]

Mine does it that way automatically. I figured it was a feature of youtube only playing the video if the tab/window is focued when the page loads.

 

[Quitch]

For me, Microsoft Edge starts playing the video as soon as I switch to the tab. This is a fresh Windows 11 install, so I'm assuming that out-of-the box operation.

 

[Kyuu]

I use the Enhancer for Youtube extension. In the options you can set it to prevent videos loaded in background and/or foreground tabs from automatically playing:

 

[continuum]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/learning-center/manage-autoplay?form=MA13I2

Looks like you can do so natively within Edge but maybe not as granularly as some plug-ins like @Kyuu used.

 

[Quitch]

Thanks, I just started playing with the media autoplay option, but it either doesn't work, or doesn't work for the types of videos on YouTube. Even setting it to block by default seems to do nothing. In which case I'll try the extension.

Thanks, both!

 

[Paladin]

Oh sorry, I thought you meant that it would be paused until you switched to the tab, like if you open a video link into a background tab it doesn't auto play. I think that is the default. I guess you meant you never want it to auto play until you hit the play button right? For that you need the deeper settings or the extension to set the settings you want.

 

[josekill11]

On Firefox if you open a YouTube video in a new tab, the video is paused when you switch to the tab. Is there a way to enable that same behaviour in Microsoft Edge?

Edge does not have a built in option to pause media when a tab becomes active. Firefox handles this differently at the browser level.

In Edge your closest options are workarounds. You can disable autoplay for media in settings, but that only affects initial load. Extensions like AutoPause or YouTube specific add ons can pause playback when the tab gains focus. Natively, Edge cannot fully mirror Firefox behavior right now.