How do you disable autoplay for videos and GIFs?

Reddit's autoplay behavior — where videos and animated GIFs begin playing automatically as they scroll into view — can be disabled through the settings on both desktop and mobile, and Reddit's official accessibility documentation covers this feature explicitly. On the desktop website at reddit.com, according to Reddit's official Accessibility and Autoplay guide, the process is: click your avatar in the top right corner, select Settings from the dropdown, navigate to the Preferences tab, and look for the "Autoplay Media" toggle. Switching this off disables automatic video playback in your feed. There is also a separate "Autoplay Animated Images" toggle that specifically controls GIF animation — disabling this stops animated GIFs from playing automatically while still allowing videos to function normally if the main autoplay toggle is on. On the official mobile app (both iOS and Android), the autoplay settings are found by tapping your avatar, selecting Settings, and looking for the video/media playback section. The options typically allow you to set autoplay to "Always," "Only on Wi-Fi," or "Never." Selecting "Never" stops all videos from playing automatically regardless of your connection type. There is also usually a separate control for animated images (GIFs) on mobile. It is worth noting that some users have reported inconsistent behavior where Reddit continues to autoplay certain content despite the setting being disabled, particularly for embedded GIF formats from external hosts. As discussed in r/AskReddit threads on autoplay, a browser extension like uBlock Origin can supplement Reddit's native toggle by blocking media from autoplaying at the browser level, providing a more reliable kill switch for users who find the native setting insufficient. Alternatively, browser-level autoplay blocking settings available in Chrome and Firefox can be applied site-specifically to reddit.com. Users who browse primarily through third-party Reddit clients may also find that those apps provide cleaner autoplay controls than the official client, since independent developers have historically been more attentive to this class of preference.