Enable Global Media Controls in Chrome To Control All Media Playback in One Place

Do you listen to music/audio while working in multiple tabs? How about a little ease so you can actually enjoy your music without breaking your flow and keeping things simple?  If yes, then you have come to the right place. While having a good time listening to your music, it’s always a problem to switch the tabs many times to control playbacks in different tabs. Want to get rid of this problem? Well, if you are a Google Chrome user, you are in luck.

Now you can work in a flow and this switch-tab thing won’t interrupt you. You can enable “Global Media Controls” Chrome flag, upon enabling this you will give a “play” button next to your search bar and you can control all the playbacks on different tabs in one place. You can pause, stop and even play next in one place. You won’t have to go to the tabs again and again to control your playback. Today I will show you how to enable and use this feature.

Related: Boost Online Videos and Audio Volume Up To 8X With This Chrome Extension

How To Enable Global Media Controls in Chrome

Below is the step-by-step process on how you can enable this flag in chrome:

Step 1: Open chrome, and type “chrome://flags/ ” in the search bar and hit Enter key.

Step 2: Type “global media controls” in the top search bar, or scroll down to “Global Media Controls” option.

Step 3: Click on the drop-down menu next to “Global Media Controls” option and select “Enabled” from it.

Step 4: Restart the browser to let the changes take effect.

That’s it, Global Media Controls are now enabled in Chrome.

How to use Global Media Controls in Chrome

When this flag is enabled in Chrome it will show a small “Play” button next to your search-bar along with extensions, when you press this button it will show you multiple Playbacks you have opened in different tabs with pause/play, next track, and previous track buttons so you can easily control your music in this one place.

In my experience, this feature works on almost all the websites with media file running on them. However, only for YouTube, I noticed the thumbnail of the video as well in the playback section, while other websites only showed the media file name.

To conclude

Make sure you are running the latest version of Chrome before using this feature. And this feature is still in inception so I guess more control option will be added as the feature progresses. I for one would love to see the ability to control volume as well in the same playback window. What do you think about this flag in Chrome? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.