Users watch and listen to a lot of media, and autoplay can make it faster and easier to consume on the web. However, one of the most frequent user concerns is unexpected media playback, which can use data, consume power, and make unwanted noise while browsing. To address this, Chrome will be making autoplay more consistent with user expectations and will give users more control over audio.

Starting in Chrome 64, autoplay will be allowed when either the media won’t play sound, or the user has indicated an interest in the media. This will allow autoplay to occur when users want media to play, and respect users' wishes when they don't. These changes will also unify desktop and mobile web behavior, making web media development more predictable across platforms and browsers.

Not all users have the same preferences for autoplay media, so Chrome 63 will add a new user option to completely disable audio for individual sites. This site muting option will persist between browsing sessions, allowing users to customize when and where audio will play.

These changes will give users greater control over media playing in their browser, while making it easier for publishers to implement autoplay where it benefits the user. For more details, please see the autoplay roadmap.

Posted by Mounir Lamouri, Software Engineer

Update 2018-05-21: The autoplay policy is in effect for <video> and <audio> and prevents roughly half of unwanted media autoplays. Please see the Chrome blog post for more details.

For the Web Audio API, the policy described in this post will go into effect in Chrome 70 (October, 2018). This will affect web games and some WebRTC applications, as well as any site using the Web Audio API. We recommend that developers update their code to correctly handle the autoplay policy.