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How to Remove Audio Description from Netflix

The Netflix streaming service came along over two decades ago, and has become quite the popular movie provider ever since. Thus through this service, you can watch many movies and shows from many collections. Plus, for the blind and vision impaired viewers, many of these shows have an audio description track. So when you play this track, you hear an announcer telling what’s going on on the screen as the show plays.  Now you can hear these descriptions by enabling them ON in the Netflix app. But many users report accidentally switching these descriptions ON when they don’t want them, and then they don’t know how to switch them OFF again.  So in this piece, we show you how to remove the audio description feature on Netflix, as follows.

How to Remove Audio Description on Netflix: Prerequisites

You can’t take 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 to Remove 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.
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.
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.

Note that if the current movie does not have audio descriptions, 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’re hearing an audio description going on, then this option will almost always appear in its Audio and Subtitles page.

5. Then, once you choose another audio track option, tap anywhere in the bottom half of the screen. This closes the Audio and Subtitles menu, takes you back to the media transport controls screen, and movie play then resumes.  

6. 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.

Other Posts About Audio Description

    1. How to Turn Off Audio Description on Disney Plus
    2. How to Turn On Audio Description on Disney Plus

References

Revision History

    • 2023-02-17: First published.