How do I permanently disable podcast audio preview while browsing?

[ifreecarve]

Plan: Premium

Country: USA

Device: Google Pixel 4a

Operating System: Android 13

App version: 8.8.36.522

My Question or Issue

1. Goto "home"
2. Select "podcasts and shows" filter
3. Scroll through podcasts

Expected behavior: complete silence, because at no point have I pressed the play button

Actual behavior: preview audio begins immediately. There is no way to prevent this from happening because the mute button does not appear until the audio plays and the setting reverts to "don't mute" every time you restart the app.

It's incredibly frustrating that I can't scroll through podcasts silently. This behavior wakes up or annoys people around me. And it annoys me!  I'm scrolling past podcasts because I literally don't want to hear them and Spotify is forcing me to. Many of the podcasts are from channels I listened to once and have no further interest in!

Please make the setting to mute the podcast preview be remembered across sessions or make the icon available before I start scrolling. This "feature" feels very disrespectful to the user.

[AlejaR]

Hey there @ifreecarve,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome. 

We appreciate your feedback. We know you’d like to take this an opportunity for Spotify to become an incredible app.  

We understand where you're coming from, and we think it's a great idea too! At the moment, it's not possible to permanently mute podcasts while you're browsing on the Podcasts & Shows feed. We really appreciate your comments. If you wish, you can post an idea about it on our Idea boards, but make sure to check if there are any existing ideas in the matter first.

Take into account that you must follow our Idea Exchange guidelines, so your suggestion will be approved more quickly and smoothly.

If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[1263376076]

I’m in total agreement. Why there’s no option to turn these audio previews off is beyond me

[Qazwsx3]

This is a deal breaker for me. You’re not going to force me to listen to clips of shows I simply don’t want to hear. 

[Ishl]

Agreed. Previews make lake sense because podcasts are longer pieces of audio. The few first second don’t give an indication of the content, plus they sound repetitive because most podcasts start with the title music or with a greeting. The overall experience is irritating and frustrating. 

[Rumi]

I cannot agree more with OP’s problem.  Every time I try to use Spotify for podcasts, I run into something irritating.  I was doing ok for a while, but this autopreview thing started happening, and without a way to shut it off, it just drives me back to my previous podcast app.  It’s like Spotify is trying really hard to prevent people from listening to podcasts while at the same time paying excessive money for podcasts.  Makes no sense to me 

[Jono31]

Agree with all the above. Will be going back to Apple Podcasts until this is sorted. 

[andybp85]

agree with all here. how annoying!

[JayMPro]

This is a really obnoxious feature and it really needs to be optional. If I'm just browsing podcasts, I don't want them to start automatically playing just because I scrolled past it. I want to silently decide what to listen to, just the same as how I don't want Youtube to autoplay video thumbnails on my homepage.