Stop Videos From Looping in the Photos App

[MacRumors]

Have you noticed your iPhone videos keep playing on repeat in the Photos app? Since Apple's iOS 18.2 update, the stock Photos app automatically replays videos until you manually pause them – a feature that might be fine at first but can quickly become annoying, especially with longer clips.

The auto-loop feature can be fun for short clips or when showing someone a quick video, but it forces you to take action to stop each video rather than letting it end naturally. It can be disruptive when you're browsing through multiple short clips in your library, and proves particularly annoying when viewing longer content where you likely don't want to see the same three-minute video play twice in a row.

Fortunately, Apple provides a simple toggle to disable the behavior:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Scroll down and tap through to Apps ➝ Photos.
3. Scroll until you find the Loop Videos option.
4. Toggle the switch to the OFF position.

That's all you need to do. Videos in your Photos app will now play once and then stop automatically. No more endless replays.

If you prefer videos not to play automatically at all when you open them, there's a related setting you can adjust. In the same Settings menu, toggle off the Auto-Play Motion option, and videos will stay still until you manually press the play button.

Article Link: Stop Videos From Looping in the Photos App

 

[jz0309]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[DigitalAR]

I’ve always thought that Apple doing this every iOS update, you know, slowly modifying the photos app slightly worse and calling it revolutionary is a prime example of how the customer never truly owns the device and how Apple doesn’t actually care for the consumer as much as they care about profits. And I mean that because they have to compete against other smartphone rivals and changing it makes it seem new, although we all know that the prime photos app was at its most wonderful numerous iOS iterations ago.

 

[Samtidens]

What I miss is the Recent folder. I often save photos from messages etc. And then they just appear where they belong in time. But really clumsy to find.

Any tips for me here?

 

[Plerf]

Oh, thank Kier. I hated that auto repeat.

 

[smoker68x]

What I miss is the Recent folder. I often save photos from messages etc. And then they just appear where they belong in time. But really clumsy to find.

Any tips for me here?

The top of the app shows all of the recent pictures, and under utilities there’s a “recently viewed” and “recently saved” option. If you haven’t already, scroll to the bottom of the photos app (iOS 18) and hit “Customize & Reorder”, and you can move everything around like you want it.

 

[jeffhayford]

This will be off by default in the next update.

 

[Zapdoc]

This will be off by default in the next update.

Thanks for that. How do you stop video clip ads automaticllly playing in safari and other browsers any?

 

[Veinticinco]

Add this to the growing iOS list of "things that really should be default/opt-in as opposed to opt-out".

 

[julesme]

Next week’s headline (?):

“How to Get Videos to Loop in the Photos App”

 

[winxmac]

Newer is not always better.

iOS 15.8 - AirDrop has no time limit for Everyone
iOS 16.7 - force clearing the RAM still works
iOS 17.7 - still has the old Photos app

 

[Minato1990]

I love that auto loop!

 

[mansplains]

Really wish all app settings would be in-app. Third parties do this, while Apple crams most options in the settings app. Is it really too much to add a gear icon? Why do we need to jump around apps to tweak one thing?

 

[Belifant]

all I want is to be able to see my camera roll and camera roll only. After all, this is the main purpose of the whole app, so why did they remove it?

 

[macjaffa]

all I want is to be able to see my camera roll and camera roll only. After all, this is the main purpose of the whole app, so why did they remove it?

yeah the new photos app is weird, It seems to want to show me everything but my last photos i took. if i scroll down, a teensy bit to far i get all loads of albums and smart stuff. no -- i just want the end of my photo roll.


something i did notice recentl which is kinda cool is that if you take a bunch of live photos in quick succession, then view them starting at the first photo, and hold the picture so it plays 'live', the iphone will actually play through all your photos like a little movie. What's missing is the ability to actually export this set as a movie for easy sharing.

 

[ryanflanders256]

I actually love the looping. I'm glad they turned it on by default in iOS 18.

 

[lk400]

This is the most useful article I’ve read on here in a long time! Thank you!

I’m fairly confident this toggle was not always there. Is it new?

 

[whatgift]

What I miss is the Recent folder. I often save photos from messages etc. And then they just appear where they belong in time. But really clumsy to find.

Any tips for me here?

The Recently Saved category is the best bet - you can see it in the Utilities row. Even better, use the Pinned Collections row and customise it to show that and anything else you access frequently (Hidden, Recently Deleted, Map, Selfies etc). The Pinned Collections row is at the top for me, and I rarely ever have to scroll up to see other rows.

I’m fairly confident this toggle was not always there. Is it new?

It was added in one of the later iOS 18 updates.

 

[Blue Nova]

What about controlling the slideshow speed, what happens to the turtle and rabbit? Since the inception of iOS 18, they ruined it.

 

[svish]

Good tip. Not having any issues with this. Not planning on turning this off. But good to have option to disable it if required in the future.

 

[jagooch]

Now I need to know how to turn off slideshow auto-play for pictures in albums. I hate the slideshow at the top of the album!