It’s just downright annoying. When your phone reconnects to your car’s Bluetooth, your music apps might automatically fire up and start playing whatever you were last listening to. Through the speakers. Super loudly. This week, I finally figured out how to stop it from blasting our evening listening choices as we buckle the car seats at frozen dawn. Turns out, it’s pretty easy to do and works for both Apple and Android users. I just wish I’d known this sooner…

Some cars have their own Bluetooth settings with controllable autoplay

For many drivers, Bluetooth settings will be housed inside Phone settings on your infotainment screen.

If there’s an option for music or apps to autoplay, turn it off.

Not every vehicle has this setting. Instead, it’s your phone that’s set to autoplay media.

Open the music app on your phone

You’ll need to go through this process for each music app on your phone: Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Pandora, etc.

Go to your music app settings

Typically, this is displayed as a gear symbol, but could be the word “Settings”

Find the Bluetooth or Playback options

There will be some sort of section giving you the option to turn off the app’s autoplay feature. It could called something along the lines of “Allow external devices to start playback.” This setting gives the app permission to just fire up and start playing your last choice through your car’s Bluetooth. Toggle it off.

Repeat the process for other apps that automatically play when you start your car.

Android users might still have trouble, but Reddit found other fixes

For Android Auto users, you can go into Android Auto Settings and toggle off “Start music automatically.” This prevents the car from automatically playing media when you turn on the car.

However, this will not prevent Bluetooth from connecting and firing up music apps.

A Redditor with a deleted account posted this solution for Android Bluetooth autoplay:

“The solution is: Go to Settings > Battery > Find the app (Spotify, YT Music, etc) and click on it. At the bottom, click LIMIT USAGE and put the app in DEEP SLEEP. Regardless of all of the other settings, the app will basically be prevented from opening itself.”

That should do it!