Autoplaying audio and video: Crawl Audit check 180

Short answer: sound that starts on its own startles people and drowns out screen readers, which also talk. If anything plays, it should be silent or easy to stop. Check 180 fails when audio, or a video without the muted attribute, is set to autoplay.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Fail: an <audio autoplay>, or a <video autoplay> without muted.
• Pass: neither.

A background video with no sound track still fails if it lacks muted. Adding the attribute costs nothing and makes the intent clear. Media started by a script isn't seen.

What the sources say

• WCAG 1.4.2 Audio Control, level A: if audio plays automatically "for more than 3 seconds", there must be a way to pause or stop it, or to control its volume separately.
• W3C: "Sound distracts some people, and also interferes with screen readers."
• This criterion applies to everything on the page, so one autoplaying video can fail the whole page.
• Chrome: "Muted autoplay is always allowed." Autoplay with sound mostly needs the visitor to have interacted with the site first.

Doing it safely

<video autoplay muted loop playsinline>...</video>

• Keep autoplay for silent background or demo video only.
• Let people start anything with sound themselves.
• For moving video, give a way to pause it as well.

On devmarde.com

Our homepage had no autoplaying audio or video on 6 October. It passes.

Sources

• W3C, Understanding 1.4.2 Audio Control.
• Chrome for Developers, Autoplay policy in Chrome, checked 6 October 2026.