
As a developer, this is incredibly frustrating and another reason to always avoid the autoplay attribute. But then when new users come to your site, it is likely to fail (because their MEI score is low). When you are testing autoplay on your own site it will probably work for you (because you visit your site often and play content, your MEI score is high). One thing to keep in mind (for Chrome at least) is that due to Chrome’s Media Engagement Index. Autoplay will probably work for you, but it will break for your users Link to Autoplay will probably work for you, but it will break for your usersĮven if you try to follow the rules above, autoplay is still a finicky beast. This basically means that you can never rely on autoplay actually working. These conditions only make autoplay more likely, but remember that aside from these conditions, the user can override the browser’s default setting on a per-domain basis.


In summary: all these browsers will aggressively block videos from autoplaying on webpages. Safari announced some policy changes in June 2017 and Chrome followed suit shortly after and Firefox after that. Over the last few years, all major browser vendors have taken steps to aggressively block autoplaying videos on webpages. Browsers will block your autoplay attempts Link to Browsers will block your autoplay attempts Let’s talk about why that’s probably not what you’re looking for and what the better option is. This sounds exactly like what you’re looking for, right? Well, not exactly. If you’re trying to autoplay videos on the web, you might be tempted to reach for the HTML5 autoplay attribute.
