If you have an Apple Music subscription, you must have noticed that you have an infinite playlist. Once you have finished queuing items to play, the Music app launches on an iPhone, iPad or Mac with an algorithmically selected group of items organized together as a ‘Playing Next’ list.
What if you don’t want the music to play continuously? Finding the “off” button is a little tricky. Except for the Playing Next list, there is no item or setting in the UI called Autoplay. How to disable autoplay in Apple’s operating systems.
Duration: 2 minutes Required tools: iOS 16, iPadOS 16 or macOS Ventura 1. Stop AutoPlay in iOS/iPadOS
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In the Music app, start playing music. Tap the title bar at the bottom of your iPhone or iPad. If you don’t see a “Play Next” list labeled “Auto play similar music” below it, tap the “Play Next” icon on the bottom-right corner of the page (it looks like a bulleted list). This icon is now highlighted. Tap the autoplay button that looks like a ∞ (infinity sign). The highlight is removed and the Playing Next list now doesn’t show any text below it and no caption about Autoplay. 2. Stop autoplay in macOS
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Start playing a track. In the top-right corner of the Music app, click the Playing Next icon (the icon that looks like a bulleted list). This will open a column of songs to play. In this list, you may see an autoplay section. Click the ∞ icon at the top of the column to deselect. (It’s red when selected. The icon is circled in the screenshot above.) The list disappears and the text “No upcoming songs” appears.
According to Apple’s support guide, you can click the ∞ again to re-enable it. However, in macOS 13 Ventura, the ∞ disappears, and I haven’t found a way to turn it back on without clicking another song or playlist and starting playback. Then the option reappears.
Apple also says that autoplay status should be synced between all your iCloud-connected devices. I haven’t seen that in practice.
This Mac 911 article answers a question from Macworld reader Bill.
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