How to Find and Silence the Browser Tab That’s Playing Audio

ByMike Moffit

When a Web browser has many tabs open, it can be hard to find the one playing audio if you need to silence it. Worse, when a browser relaunches, it can be tough to identify and silence all the tabs that have automatically started playing audio. Happily, all browsers can help. Tabs with active audio show a speaker icon next to their names; click it to mute the audio. These speaker icons are easier to spot in browsers that display tabs vertically rather than horizontally across the top, where space constraints may prevent the speaker icons from appearing. Safari provides an additional option: a speaker icon on the right side of the address bar (see the top screenshot). Click it to mute all audio, or Control-click it to see which tabs are playing audio. Chromium-based browsers—including Google Chrome, Brave, and Microsoft Edge—display a musical note icon in the upper-right corner of the toolbar (bottom screenshot). Click it to open playback controls and stop playback.

(Featured image based on an original by iStock.com/Khosrork)

Social Media: Drowning in open tabs and can’t find the one playing sound? Look for the speaker icon on the tab itself, or use Safari’s address bar icon or Chrome’s music note for quick control.

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    * Choose your preferred microphone from the pop-up menu below the microphone icon. Normally, you use the internal microphone but if you are using a headset or external microphone you can choose that.

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    * Go to a document or other text field and place the insertion point where you want your dictated text to appear.

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    *Unix commands for Terminal, such as using ssh to log in to a remote computer.

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