How to turn off podcast video in the mobile app?

[garchar]

Ever since the Ramsey Show Highlights added video it causes subsequent podcast in the “Your Epidodes” list to not play. I send Spotify to the background, but the video embedded Ramsey podcast still kills the other podcast episodes. It is worse and more prevalent when I am at the far end of my WI-FI network.

I don’t have any issues with just audio based podcasts.

[Eni · Accepted solution]

Hey there @garchar, 

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

On mobile, you'll see the option to disable video podcasts while not listening to them on WiFi by heading to Settings > Data saver > Stream audio only. 

On desktop, you can either click the X in the video itself or the Show/Hide video button in the lower left corner of the app, next to the title of the currently playing episode. 

If you can't see those options, could you send us a screenshot of what you're seeing on your end? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert image option in the post editor. Make sure not to send any private info.

Hope this helps. If you need a hand with anything else, the Community. 

[garchar]

I want to be able to turn off video period. Not just when I am using my data plan.

[Vasil]

Hey @garchar,

If you feel strongly about us having this feature on mobile and/ or desktop, you can submit an Idea on the forum about this and share it with your peers.
The more votes it gathers - the better its chance of implementation!

We're here for you in case you need anything else 🙂 

[garchar]

You mean like this one?

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/All-Platforms-Podcasts-Option-to-disable-or-hide-podcast...

Doesn’t seem likely based on that thread.   In reality it can’t be done.  That was what I was trying to confirm.

[JacobiSensei]

I don't want videos to play on WiFi either.. how do i stop the videos while on wifi? (iPhone 15)

[Risty23]

You need to take this gesture off or give us parental controls.  My daughter spends all her time watching stupid videos.  Worst experience so far.  I may have to go back to pandora and give them my 18 bucks a month.  Fix it.

[Risty23]

Feature not gesture.

[ch1121]

Agreed. Fix this issue. I want the option to turn of video, not just on data. This is terrible UX

[MaDoodle]

I, too, as a parent, need tge option of turning the video off. I want us to be able to listen to things, but my kids are glued to the screen. I may have to explore other services if I cannot control this feature.

[CTapps]

As a parent, this feature is very bad. We go to a lot of trouble to make sure that our kids aren’t watching YouTube or Twitch or TikTok. Spotify used to be a great outlet for them. Not anymore. There needs to be a parental control for this ASAP. I’m sure many parents are upset about this, assuming they even know about it

[eppyduck]

Make it possible to disable all videos. No use for a family deal if all they do is watch dumb podcast videos.

[kkamileq7]

Plan

Premium

Country

Poland

Device

iPhone 12 pro

Operating System

Latest version.

My Question or Issue

Could you please add an option to turn off video for podcasts? Many users, myself included, find it distracting. Spotify is primarily a music and podcast app, not a video platform. The videos consume additional data and make navigation less seamless when switching between options, music, and podcasts. I’ve discussed this with friends, and everyone feels disappointed by this feature; many are switching to Apple Podcasts or other alternatives.

[SuperVitamine]

Please add the "Turn Videos always off" Feature. My son keeps watching stupid Videos instead of just hearing music or podcasts.

[KK112]

I cannot find the play audio only option in playback settings, has this been taken away? 

[Nostromo]

This is so f. annoying I don't want to be forced to be watching other people's faces while listening to PODCASTS. Why can't I disable video completely in the settings. I use this App for Audio, you suck at trying to become TikTok 

[Wardym1]

Hi, has there been a solution to this yet? I don't want my daughter or son watching videos all the time, just listening to music. I don't know how to stable this feature but it's not a parent friendly app if we can't have some control over content.

[tallentn]

Another parent, same issue.  I dropped my membership a year ago when my daughter showed me videos and there was no way to prevent it...wasn't sure there was any oversight of their content even.  I heard this had been fixed, but sounds like it has not.  Ability to disable video should be a user control for many reasons, not the least of which is so parents can give kids video-free access to music.  No video podcast, no Canvas blurbs, no video period.  Music only mode seems reasonable for a music app...

[2025parent]

Another frustrated parent here. We thought we had all of our daughter's phone content pretty well managed, then realized she was watching TikTok-like videos on Spotify. There absolutely needs to be an addition to the controls for this. Some of the videos are pretty inappropriate; we're not opposed to explicit lyrics in songs (bc they're not THAT explicit or that frequent in her music library) and don't want to have to turn those off as a potential work around to her receiving explicit content in video. Spotify Kids only works for so long; if you could problem solve for the tweens and teens, that would fill a much void. 

[simoonsteffen]

yeah so this is absolutely NOT a solution since i only have the option on iPhone to disable video playback with the data-saver option (which also turns my music quality down to 24kbit/s for some reason??????) Like, who even thought of not even giving us the option to fully opt-out of such an unnecessary feature?