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Microsoft Enables Global Media Controls in Microsoft Edge

As you may remember, Microsoft was working on the enhanced version of the 'Global Media Controls' feature for their newest Chromium-based Edge that allows controlling all active media sessions in the browser from a single flyout. The feature is finally available in the latest Canary build.

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Microsoft is actually trying to improve the existing functionality of Chrome. Recently Google has started working on the 'Global Media Controls' feature. Chrome includes an experimental feature that shows a popup that is similar to the one that appears when you press multimedia keys on your keyboard. As of now, it handles the active media session only. Microsoft's implementation lists all the media sessions running in the browser, and allows you to pause or continue running them. So, if you have multiple tabs in the browser that play sounds, like YouTube, Spotify, and Vimeo, you can manage their playback from a single flyout.

Edge Global Media Controls In Action

Update 2020/12/28:  To enable Global Media Controls in actual Microsoft Edge versions, please follow these instructions:

Enable or Disable Global Media Controls in Toolbar in Microsoft Edge

The information below is for pre-release Edge versions. Use the above link to enable or disable the feature in actual Edge releases.

Starting in Edge Canary 78.0.249.0, you can use a new flag to enable the Global Media Controls feature.

To Enable Global Media Controls in Microsoft Edge Chromium,

  1. Update Edge Chromium to the latest available version (see the list below).
  2. Type edge://flags/#enable-media-session-service into the address bar of Edge.
  3. Set the Media Session Service flag to Enabled.Edge Enable Global Media Controls
  4. Relaunch the browser when prompted.Edge Relauch Browser Flags

You are done!

Now, open a couple of YouTube tabs and click on the new 'play' button on the toolbar. You will be able to manage playback for all playing videos from the single flyout.

Microsoft is currently using three channels to deliver updates to Edge Insiders. The Canary channel receives updates daily (except Saturday and Sunday), the Dev channel is getting updates weekly, and the Beta channel is updated every 6 weeks. The stable channel is also on its way to users. The new Microsoft Edge browser installs updates automatically. Also, you can manually check for updates by visiting the menu Help > About Microsoft Edge. Finally, you can grab the Edge installer from the following page:

Download Microsoft Edge Preview

At the moment of this writing, the latest Microsoft Edge Chromium versions are as follows.



I have covered many Edge tricks and features in the following post:

Hands-on with the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge

Also, see the following updates.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

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