How Do I Turn Off Audio Description on Netflix

Netflix player startup banner.

Here we answer the question: How Do I Turn Off Audio Description on Netflix? Now the Netflix streaming service came along over two decades ago. Since then it has become quite the popular movie provider. Through this service, you can watch many movies and shows from various collections. Plus, for the blind and vision impaired viewers, some shows have an audio description track. When you play this track, you hear an announcer describing what’s going on on the screen as the show plays. So you can hear these descriptions by turning them ON in the Netflix app.

But many users report accidentally enabling audio description when they don’t want them. But then they don’t know how to switch them OFF again. So in this piece, we show how to turn off the audio description feature.

How Do I Turn Off Audio Description on Netflix: Prerequisites

You can’t turn these off, unless you have set up the following first.

1. A Netflix subscription.
2. Access to the Netflix app, whether that be on your phone, tablet, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, et al.
3. Or, if not the app, you may play the movies right in a web browser.

How Do I Turn Off Audio Description on Netflix: Step by Step

1. Bring up your Netflix player of choice, and start playing a movie.

2. Then, tap the middle of the screen to bring up the transport controls (Play / Pause, Skip Back, Skip Forward). This overlay looks something like we see in the next picture.

The Netflix player transport control screen, showing the -Audio and Subtitles- option.

3. Tap the Audio and Subtitles link near the bottom center of the screen. This brings up a list of audio and subtitle choices as we see next.

The Netflix player -Audio and Subtitles- menu, showing one option without audio descriptions.

4. Next, in the Audio list, tap your preferred audio option. I.e. Choose any other option besides one with the phrase Audio Description or the letters AD in its name. This switches OFF the audio descriptions.

5. Now the current movie may not have audio descriptions. In that case then, this option does not appear in this menu. And the description that you believe you are hearing, is actually part of the main audio track. However, telling an audio description apart from the main movie narration is usually pretty easy. So if you hear an audio description, then this option appears in the Audio and Subtitles page.

6. Then, once you choose another audio track option, tap anywhere in the bottom half of the screen. This closes the Audio and Subtitles menu. Then it takes you back to the media transport controls screen. Finally there, movie play resumes. If play does not restart, then tap the right arrow in screen center to get it going again.

7. Finally, you should no longer hear any audio description.