Playing videos in Firefox for Android

Firefox for Android gives you lots of options for playing video and audio on your phone, including background playback, picture-in-picture support and auto-play settings.

Picture-in-picture mode

Picture-in-picture mode lets you continue watching a video from a website while visiting other tabs. You can even continue watching the video while using other apps.

  1. Start the video and switch to full-screen mode.
  2. While the video is playing, press the home button on your phone. The video will resize and you'll be able to view it while using other sites or apps.
Don't see a home button? If your phone doesn't have a device home button, swipe up while the video is playing to access the on-screen home button.

Device settings: If this feature doesn't work, check your device settings to make sure you've allowed picture-in-picture mode in Firefox.

Enabling and disabling video autoplay

If Firefox blocks the autoplay of a video on a site, you will see a blue dot on the lock icon in the address bar.

FenixBlockAutoplay

Tap this icon to change view the settings for that site. Click Block audio and video and select the option for autoplay you want to use.

FenixChangeAutoplay

You can visit Settings to change autoplay settings to Firefox for Android from automatically playing videos/audio when you visit a website. This helps you save battery life too.

  1. Tap the menu button. Settings icon in address bar in android

  2. Tap Settings.
  3. Tap Site permissions.
  4. Tap Autoplay.
  5. Choose your preferred option:
    • Block audio and video on cellular data only: Audio and video will still autoplay on Wi-Fi.
    • Block audio only: Video will autoplay without sound.
    • Block audio and video: Prevents autoplay of both audio and video.

Change autoplay settings for specific websites

You can change site permissions to allow video autoplay only in your trusted websites.

  1. Tap Settings.
  2. Tap Site permissions.
  3. Tap Exceptions
  4. Tap the name of the website to see its current permissions and to make changes.

Exceptions

Additionally, you can quickly change autoplay settings for a specific website from the Toolbar where you can modify permissions for a given website from a dropdown list.

Quick access - Autoplay

Listen to videos in the background

If you minimize Firefox while playing video/audio, it will continue to play in the background, so you can multitask on your phone.

Firefox will pause playback for audio or videos that are open in your private tabs when you minimize it.

Control media playback through your notifications panel

When you play a video or audio, controls will appear in your notifications panel so you can control playback there -- without having to open Firefox.

See and stop noisy tabs

Your Open Tabs section in the Firefox for Android home screen will show you whether or not any tabs are playing audio or video, along with a pause button, so you can stop playing it without opening the page.

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