Identify Tab that Plays Audio & Media Title in Edge Browser

One of the annoyance of opening many tabs in a web browser is that when suddenly there is sound coming out of computer’s speakers randomly, but you don’t know which tab is actually playing the video or audio, making you wasting time to open the tabs one by one to figure out how to silent the sound.

More and more web browsers have added feature which indicates which tab is playing audio for easy identification, by showing a special icon on the tab itself. But not IE (Internet Explorer). However, Microsoft Edge (Project Spartan), the all new web browser from Microsoft that is replacing the IE in Windows 10, has built-in support for audio playback notification on the tab.

When a web page is playing audio, either playing a song, music, animation or video, Edge displays a “speaker” icon on the tab, next to the favicon. For some media, Edge also displays the “play” icon that indicates the tab is playing a video.

If you hover the mouse over the “speaker” icon, Edge displays “This tab is playing media”. If you hover the mouse over the “play” icon, Edge shows the name or title of the media that is playing in the tab, so you can know which media is playing in the background without even opening the tab.