How to stop Apple music from playing automatically on my car

Here’s is the automation I created that worked for me— the instructions are slightly different than what Sharkinstx posted.

Here’s how I managed to make automation work:

I am running iOS 17.2.1 on a 2020 iPhone SE…

• Open “Shortcuts” app
• Tap “Automation” in the center of the menu bar at the bottom of the screen (between “Shortcuts” and “Gallery”)
• Tap “+” in upper right corner of screen
• Under the header, “Personal Automation” you can type “Bluetooth” into the search bar at the top of the screen and select it OR scroll down to where Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,  and NFC are grouped… and tap “Bluetooth”
• Just below the header, “When”, to the right of “Device”, tap “Choose” to choose your vehicle’s stereo/bluetooth connection (assuming you’ve already setup your car’s BT connection)
• Select your car’s BT connection from the collection under “My Devices”… make sure there’s a check mark next to it
• Tap “Done” in upper-right corner
• NOTE: the default on-screen setting at this point should be “Is Connected”… do not change that
• Change setting at bottom of screen to  “Run Immediately”
• Tap “Next” at top right corner of screen
• Under “Get Started” header, tap “New Blank Automation”
• Tap “Add Action”
• Under “categories” tap “Media”
• Categories under “Media” header are alphabetized; scroll down to “Playback” (go past “Music”) and tap “Play/Pause”
• On new screen, tap “Play/Pause” and change to “Pause”
• Tap “Done” at top right corner of screen

And you’re done!!

Worked for me!

(Phew)

And I do hope our valued Moderator allows me to say this, because I believe commiserating with others on this board has real value, especially since Apple has enlisted us to solve problems it created, but:

I share many’s opinion that this “feature” was intentionally programmed by Apple despite the fact it flies in the face of common User Interface behavior. It truly breeds ill-will between this customer (me) and Apple. We shouldn’t have to become programmers to defeat an obnoxious feature virtually no one has ever asked for. It’s the equivalent of your radio turning on every time you start your car. Or the CD player. Or the cassette player. And you CANNOT choose to stop it from happening. It makes me NOT want to use Apple Music— I hope it doesn’t break the board’s rules to say that.

This is missing a step:

• Open Shortcuts app
• Tap "Automation" at the bottom center of the screen
• Tap "Create Personal Automation"
• Tap "Bluetooth"
• Tap "Choose" under Device and select your car
• Tap "Done"
• Tap "Next"
• Tap "Add Action"
• Tap "Media"
• Scroll down to the Playback section and tap "Play/Pause"
• Tap "Play/Pause" on the top of this screen and choose "Pause"
• Tap "Next"
• Tap "Done"

I finally got mine to work using the following path using

Shortcuts:

• Open Shortcuts app
• Tap "Automation" at the bottom center of the screen
• Tap "Create Personal Automation"
• Tap "Bluetooth"
• Tap "Choose" under Device and select your car
• Tap "Run Immediately"
• Tap "Next"
• Tap "New Blank Automation"
• Tap "Add Action"
• Using the Search Box, type and Select "Wait"
• Tap "1 second" and change to "4 seconds"

(my car takes this long to play music after connecting to BT, adjust to your

needs accordingly)

• Using the search bar below - type "media" then

scroll and select "Play/Pause"

• Tap "Play/Pause" on the top of this screen and

choose "Pause"

• Tap "Done"

Your final Automation should look like this:

As you can see here, you will find the same problem with Android.

https://support.google.com/androidauto/thread/188932983/can-t-turn-off-start-music-automatically?hl=en

The ability to pause Bluetooth Audio is an option on some car models head units. Others will just have the option to skip ahead or back to songs. You will find in these type of stereos that the bluetooth audio needs to continue to play on your phone even when listening to a FM radio station. That is because the stereo is not able to issue a "Pause/Play" command like what can be found in many common bluetooth headphones.

The setting to change this behavior can only be found in the stereos of the car where they can set to autoplay Bluetooth. The shortcut will work to stop autoplay when the stereo does not have this setting, but iOS 17 added an additional security setting that you need to set to allow it to run automatically. You will find that when using the shortcut, to get your bluetooth audio to play, you will need to push play on your iPhone, since the stereo cannot do it.

I was finally able to stop it by going to: Settings —> Apple Music app —> turning OFF cellular data. Hope this helps.

I think I found a way to get this shortcut to work: Add a 2 second "wait" action before the "pause" action. That helps make sure the pause happens after the play signal sent from the car. So far it seems to work, fingers crossed. You might have to adjust the wait time up and down depending on your specific situation. Good luck!

btw I'm guessing the reason Apple can't "fix" this is because the car stereo is simply sending a "play" signal just like if you pressed play on a set of earbuds or whatever. There's no way for ios to know the difference.

Try this. Buy on iTunes John Cages' 4'33 (I think it 99cents) and put into in a playlist. And make it a loop player. If you have that song as the last thing you played on your Apple Music when it hooks into your bluetooth you will hear

SILENCE. It's a famous song with NOTHING playing for 4 minutes and 33 cents. I just got into my car for the first time since I set it up and the bluetooth hooked in and the song played and I heard NOTHING

I finally figured it out…2 cars and 2 phones, and many “fixes” that didn’t work later… I did one simple thing. I (changed to Spotify and) deleted Apple Music from my phone. Not ideal for some, I know, but it worked. Now I don’t have to listen to Cat by Mancini every time I start the car.

I think I found a way to get this shortcut to work: Add a 2 second "wait" action before the "pause" action. That helps make sure the pause happens after the play signal sent from the car. So far it seems to work, fingers crossed. You might have to adjust the wait time up and down depending on your specific situation. Good luck!

btw I'm guessing the reason Apple can't "fix" this is because the car stereo is simply sending a "play" signal just like if you pressed play on a set of earbuds or whatever. There's no way for ios to know the difference.

If you don’t use Apple Music. Just uninstall/remove app.. as it will always be the default auto play

This shortcut does not work, even when setting the action to “pause”. I spent a long time with a helpful Apple Support agent. Music has an auto play feature you can turn off if you have a paid subscription. I do not and will not pay just to be able to turn off auto play. None of the other apps I use like IHeart or Amazon music block this feature without a paid subscription. I’ll be deleting Music.

It depends on your Car Stereo. You may be able to change the input source from Bluetooth to another option. Newer head units have the option to pause the bluetooth source. With these newer stereos, they also usually have a setting to not autoplay when connected. If your stereo only allows you to play the next/last song, then it will play when connected since there is no play/pause button on the stereo and having to do that on your phone defeats the whole purpose of having a hands-free bluetooth device in your car.

The shortcut below does work with the caveat that iOS 17 added the additional step of setting the shortcut to run automatically for security and also Zachar1 suggested to add the Wait command for a couple of seconds before adding "Pause", which I did not need to do.

I finally found a solution that WORKS every time after reading countless articles on this topic:

Delete the Music app from your iPhone and listen to music through Spotify or some other app.

Someday if Apple decides to fix this “feature,” I’ll consider going back to iOS Music.

for now, I just deleted the app entirely and that fixed the issue. I am so happy.

Thank you for the thorough and helpful reply! In my case I almost never have this issue with Spotify—only Apple Music. it’s the same with connecting to Bluetooth headphones or my car—only Music auto plays. I don’t have this issue with Spotify.

perhaps it’s because my car is so old and I’m not using “Apple car play” but instead just connecting via USB into a 2012 car.

since I deleted the Apple Music app, I have not had this problem. But I recognize I’m probably an outlier due to my old technology

TommieC2015 wrote:

"Media" is not an option when I try this process. Nor does the automation module for Music offer Play / Pause option. This has been an infuriating issue FOR YEARS!!! SHAME ON YOU, Apple -- GET A CLUE!!!

Here is where the Media option is located. If you do not see it, make sure the Categories tab is selected above it.

This is where the Play/Pause option is. It is not under the Music section, it is in the Playback section as described in the instructions. Keep scrolling down and you will find it.

You can also search for the action on the first screen shot by typing play/pause, but make sure you are selecting the one from the Playback section.