How To Set A YouTube Sleep Timer So Videos Won't Keep Playing Non-Stop

There are multiple things you can try if you have trouble sleeping. You can take help from sleep gadgets like a nightlight or humidifier that claim to help you sleep better, or listen to podcasts or soothing music on YouTube while trying to sleep. However, the downside of doing the latter is that you might sometimes wake up because of those podcasts or music that continues to play even if you've fallen asleep. To ensure that YouTube automatically stops playing the video so that you don't get disturbed by their sound once you have fallen asleep, you should use YouTube's sleep timer feature.

YouTube's sleep timer feature allows you to set a timer after which you want to automatically stop the media that's playing. So, for instance, if you know that it takes you 10 minutes to fall asleep, you can set a sleep timer of 10 minutes. Once the timer hits, the content that's playing on YouTube will automatically pause. Interestingly, the feature is available for YouTube web as well, which means you can take advantage of this feature even on devices like a Windows computer for which the platform isn't available as an app.

The sleep time feature was initially only available to YouTube premium subscribers, but at the end of 2024, YouTube announced that they are making this feature available to all its users. That said, the process to set a YouTube sleep timer is the same on both Android and iOS and almost similar on YouTube for thee web. Let's first see how to do it on the YouTube app:

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1. Play a video on YouTube, tap the gear icon in the top-right corner, and choose Sleep timer.
2. By default, this setting is set to Off, but you have multiple timers to choose from, ranging from 10 minutes to one hour. There's also an end of video option that will pause the playback once the current video ends.

On a web browser, the process is almost similar—the only difference is that unlike on the YouTube app, where the gear icon is in the top-right corner, it's at the bottom of the window on the YouTube website. The sleep timer feature is also available on YouTube Music. To set a sleep timer on YouTube Music:

Aman Kumar/SlashGear

1. Launch the YouTube Music app and play any music or podcast you want.
2. Tap the three dots in the top-right corner and choose Sleep timer.
3. Choose the time after which you want the track to pause automatically.

Unfortunately, this feature isn't available on YouTube Music on the web. So, if you like using YouTube Music on devices like your Windows computer, you still have to manually pause the track before going to sleep.

A sleep timer has become one of the most important features of any music or video streaming platform. That's why most such platforms, including Apple Music and Spotify, also offer sleep timer functionality.