Amazon Prime Chromecast autoplay

How to Stop YouTube From Autoplaying the Next Video on Chromecast

• Jason Fitzpatrick

  @jasonfitzpatric

When you use your Chromecast for YouTube videos, theres an annoying feature where suggested videos continuously queue up whether you want them or not. Heres now to turn that feature off.

Whats the Deal?

RELATED: How to Stop YouTube from Automatically Playing Videos on iOS, Android, and the Web

YouTube likes to automatically play suggested videos after your current video is over. This is pretty easy to turn off on the desktop and mobile apps, but the setting is a bit more hidden when it comes to the Chromecast. Yes, its a completely different toggle, and if you dont turn it off,your Chromecast will continuously queue videos for thenext four hours unless you interrupt it. For some, thats merely annoying; for those with limited bandwidth, its potentially very costly, especially if you dont realize its still playing after you turn off the TV.

Lets put an end to that nonsense, right now.

How to Turn OffAutoplay on the Chromecast

In a perfect world, turning off autoplayin your mobile app would also turn it off for the Chromecast. But it doesnt, and there isnt even an obvious toggle for it in the settings.Theonly way to turn it off is to look in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

First, launch the YouTube application while connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your Chromecast. Second, tap the Chromecast icon in the apps navigation bar.

Select any one of your Chromecasts. Which one doesnt matter, as the setting is app-based and not specific to the individual Chromecast unit.

Once you make your selection, youll see a little note at the bottom of the screen indicating that youre connected to the Chromecast, but that there are no videos in the queue.

Make note of that location on the screen, but dont get too excited yet. Tap any YouTube video on the main screen and then select Queue to add it to your queue of casted YouTube videos. Youmust queue a video for this to work, but you only have to queue one.

At the bottom of the screen youll see another pop-up notification that the video has been added to your queue. Tap on it.

Here, located in a spot you wouldnt even notice unless you were actively queuing items, is the autoplay toggle for the Chromecast stream. Toggle Autoplay to off.

Now, after turning off Autoplay, repeat the process on all the devices in your household that cast YouTube videos to your Chromecast. As we mentioned above, the setting is not flagged on the Chromecast itselfits specific to each phone and tablet. But onceyou toggle it off in the YouTube app, the autoplay function is turned off for all Chromecasts you connect to, so at least thats nice.

With that inconvenience out of the way, you no longer have to worry about your Chromecast aimlessly meandering through hours and hours of suggested videos long after youve left the room.