How to Automatically Play Video in Google Slides

When you reach a slide with an embedded video in Google Slides, sometimes it will take you a few extra seconds to get it started. Moving the cursor to the video thumbnail to press play can be frustrating and take up your valuable time.

Fortunately, Google Slides have a convenient option that allows videos to automatically play once you reach the slide they’re on. All it takes are a few simple clicks, and this article will show you how.

Make Google Slides Automatically Play the Video

To make a video start automatically as soon as you switch to the slide, you’ll need to adjust some options. Follow these steps:

1. Open the Normal View of your Google Slides project.
   
2. Right-click the video.
   
3. Select Format options from the dropdown menu.
   
4. Select Video playback.
   
5. Check Autoplay when presenting.
   

There’s also an alternative and quicker way to enable automatic playback.

1. Click the video on your Google Slides project and elect the Format options button that appeared above the video. The new side menu will pop up on the right side of the screen.
   
2. Tick the Autoplay when presenting box.
   

Next time when you move to the video part of your slide, it will automatically start.

How to Make Google Slides Auto Advance After a Video

If you want a seamless presentation with videos, you might want to make your slides automatically advance after a video plays. This method will require you to know the length of your video.

1. Click on the File drop-down menu and select Publish to the Web.
2. Change the option for Auto-advance slides from the default to the desired time.

You may have to create several items, such as shapes with a time delay, on the page and place them behind the video to get the auto-advance feature to change slides when needed.

How to Insert a Video in Google Slides

Before you start playing your videos automatically, you should first learn how to insert them properly. You can insert any video, either from the Drive, YouTube, or another streaming service with a few simple clicks. To do this, you need to follow these steps.

1. Go to the slide where you want to insert the video and select the Insert > Video.
   
2. Pick the source from where you’ll upload the video. You’ll be able to choose between three tabs – YouTube, Other URL, and Google Drive. Let’s say you want a video from YouTube.
   
3. Type or paste the URL of the video that you want to appear on your slide.
4. Click on the video and press Select.
5. The video should appear on your slide.

You can drag your video around and change its size. It can be a smaller part of a larger slide, or it can take up the full slide.

Other Ways to Format the Video

Besides autoplay, there are plenty of other ways to format the video in the Format options menu. You can modify the exact starting and ending time of the video. It can come in very handy if you need only a certain fragment of a very long video.

1. Under the Autoplay when presenting there’s a Mute video option. So if the audio isn’t necessary (or isn’t appropriate) your audience may only view the picture.
2. Under the Drop shadow option you can add depth to your video thumbnail by casting a close or distant shadow to the background of the slide. This way the video will feel like a part of the slide instead of looking out of place.

If Not Convenient – Turn It off

There will probably be some presentations where the video preview will need to remain motionless until you’ve finished the speech. So, when you don’t need a video to start right away, it would be best to disable automatic playback. This way you’ll prevent any inconvenience and the need to manually stop it.

When you need your video to remain motionless, follow the same steps from the first section of this article and uncheck the Autoplay when presenting option.

How often do you use the auto-playing option for your videos on Google Slides? Do you ever need to disable this function? Share your experience in the comments below.