Video autoplay

Most video sections and product pages allow auto-play for videos. However, a few important things to notice could prevent auto-play, especially on mobile devices.

Low-power mode

The first reason videos are not playing on mobile is related to low-power mode. Low-power mode is a special setting available in most mobile devices that allow to preserve battery life by reducing animation and blocking video auto-play.

This is done at the phone level, and the theme cannot force autoplay when a mobile is in low-power mode. If your video does not autoplay, ensure that you are not in low-power mode.

Limited data

Videos are heavy and can consume a lot of data on mobile devices. This can be a problem when users are in roaming (using their data in a foreign country), as roaming data can be extremely expensive. To avoid that, some mobile browsers can block video autoplay to protect users from expensive bills.

Videos with sound

Due to a lot of abuse in the past, browsers decided a few years ago to block autoplay for videos with sound to improve user experience. For this reason, when enabling autoplay, the theme automatically mutes the videos. However, depending on your privacy and browser settings, this might not be enough, especially on mobile. If so, try removing the sound directly from the video and re-upload it to Shopify.

Product videos

On desktop, some of our themes allow us to show product media as a grid rather than a carousel. When configured like this, autoplay will be turned off automatically. This is to avoid having several media playing simultaneously on the media grid, which can confuse buyers.

If you wish to use autoplay for product media on desktop, use a carousel layout for your product media.