How to Turn Sound Off on Facebook Without Losing Your Mind

We've all been there. You’re sitting in a quiet doctor’s office or maybe sneaking a quick scroll during a boring meeting, and suddenly—BLAM—a video of a screaming goat or a loud cooking tutorial blares from your speakers. It’s mortifying. Honestly, the way Facebook defaults to "noise everywhere" is one of the most intrusive design choices in social media history. If you want to turn sound off on facebook, you aren’t just looking for a button; you’re looking for your dignity back.

The app is notoriously twitchy. Sometimes you think you’ve muted everything, but then you open a Story and the music starts pumping anyway. Or you click a notification and "pop!"—that little digital droplet sound echoes through the room. Meta changes these menus constantly, often burying the toggles deep inside "Media" or "Preferences" submenus that seem designed to confuse.

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The Desktop Struggle: Silencing the Browser

If you’re using a laptop or a PC, you have it a bit easier, but there are still traps. Most people just reach for the mute button on their keyboard. That’s a band-aid. If you want a permanent fix so you can listen to Spotify while browsing without Facebook’s auto-play videos hijacking your audio output, you have to dig into the site settings.

Click your profile picture in the top right. Head to Settings & Privacy, then hit Settings. Scroll down the left sidebar until you see Videos. This is where the magic (or the annoyance) happens. There’s a toggle for "Auto-play Videos." Turn it off. Seriously. Even if you don't mind the sound, this saves a massive amount of bandwidth and CPU usage.

But wait. There’s a catch. Even with auto-play off, sometimes the interface sounds—those little pings when you get a like or a message—persist. To kill those, you have to go to Notifications and look for the "How You Get Notifications" section. Under Browser, you can toggle off "Play a sound when each new notification is received." It’s a relief you didn't know you needed until it's gone.

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Mobile Chaos: Taming the iOS and Android Apps

Mobile is where the real battle is fought. The Facebook app is basically a giant noise machine. Between the "pull-to-refresh" chirps and the video feed, it’s a lot. To turn sound off on facebook on your phone, the process varies slightly between iPhone and Android, mostly because of how the operating systems handle permissions.

On an iPhone, tap the three horizontal lines (the "hamburger" menu) at the bottom right. Scroll to Settings & Privacy, then Settings. You're looking for Media.

Once you’re in the Media menu, look for "Videos Start With Sound." Toggle that off immediately. This ensures that when you scroll past a video, it stays silent unless you specifically tap it. But there’s a sneaky one: "Sounds in the App." This controls the little clicks and whistles the app makes when you interact with it. Turn that off too. It makes the whole experience feel much cleaner and less like a noisy toy.

Android users, your path is almost identical, but the menu is usually at the top right. The "Media" section is still your destination. Interestingly, some versions of the Android app have an "In-app sounds" toggle that likes to turn itself back on after a major update. It’s worth checking every few months or whenever you hear an unexpected beep.

Why Does Facebook Want the Sound On?

It isn't an accident. Mark Zuckerberg's engineers know that sound increases "dwell time." According to data from various UX research firms, including Nielsen Norman Group, sound is a powerful sensory hook. If a video starts playing with sound, you are significantly more likely to stop scrolling and look at it for more than three seconds.

For advertisers, those three seconds are gold. It’s the difference between a "view" and a "skip." By making it slightly annoying to turn sound off on facebook, the platform nudges you toward higher engagement. It’s a classic "dark pattern" in design—making the user's preferred choice (silence) a few extra clicks away while the platform's preferred choice (loudness) is the default.

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Stories and Reels: The Final Boss of Noise

Even if you’ve muted the main feed, Stories and Reels often play by their own rules. Reels, in particular, are designed to be an immersive, TikTok-like experience. This means they want the sound on.

If you're watching Reels, the app usually remembers your last setting. If you mute a Reel by tapping the screen or the small speaker icon, the next one should stay muted. However, if you close the app and come back later, it might reset. It’s frustrating.

For Stories, it's even more fickle. On many versions of the app, the only way to truly silence Stories without toggling your phone’s global "Silent Mode" switch is to manually hit the volume rocker on the side of your device.

The Nuclear Option: System-Level Silencing

Sometimes the app just won't behave. If you've toggled everything and you still hear ghosts in the machine, use your phone's OS to do the heavy lifting.

1. On Android: You can go to Settings > Sounds & Vibration > Volume. Here, you can specifically lower the "Media" volume to zero while keeping your "Ringtone" and "Alarms" loud. This way, Facebook literally can't make noise because it doesn't have permission to bypass that slider.
2. On iOS: The physical "Mute" switch on the side of the iPhone is your best friend. However, be careful—if you have "Change with Buttons" enabled in your ringer settings, you might accidentally leave your media volume high even when the ringer is off.

Actionable Steps for a Silent Experience

Stop letting your phone dictate the noise level of your room. Follow these specific steps to ensure total silence:

• Kill the "In-App Sounds" first. This is the biggest culprit for those annoying clicks and pops while navigating.
• Disable "Videos Start With Sound" in the Media menu. This is the primary way to turn sound off on facebook for the news feed.
• Check your Auto-play settings. Setting videos to "Never Auto-play Videos" not only saves your ears but also saves your data plan and battery life.
• Use the Browser version if the app is too much. Browsers like Chrome or Safari allow you to "Mute Site" entirely. Just right-click the tab on a desktop and hit Mute Site. It’s a permanent, foolproof silence.
• Update the app regularly. Sometimes a bug causes sound settings to reset; developers usually patch these "rogue audio" issues in the next version.

Managing your digital environment is about taking back control. Social media is noisy enough as it is; your physical space doesn't need to be part of the racket. By digging into these settings, you turn the app back into a tool you use, rather than a loud guest you can't get to leave.