The Background Noise Nuisance
One of the most frustrating experiences while browsing the web is opening a link in a new background tab, continuing to read your current page, and suddenly being blasted with unexpected audio from an auto-playing video or advertisement in that background tab. By default, Google Chrome allows background tabs to play audio just as freely as the active tab you are looking at.
While Chrome has made strides in blocking some autoplaying media, many sites still bypass these restrictions. If you frequently open multiple tabs at once (like middle-clicking a dozen news articles or Reddit threads), you might want to force Chrome to keep those tabs completely silent until you actually click on them and bring them into focus.
How to Stop Audio in Background Tabs
This setting is not available in the standard options menu; you must use Chrome’s hidden Flags menu.
- Open Google Chrome.
- In the address bar at the top, type the following exactly and press Enter:
chrome://flags- You will see a warning that these are experimental features. In the “Search flags” box at the top of the page, type: audio
- Look for a flag titled Enable pending audio play or something similar related to deferring background audio (the exact name occasionally changes depending on the Chrome version). Note: If you do not see a specific background audio deferral flag in newer versions, you may need to rely on the Mute Site feature instead, as Google frequently removes flags.
- If the flag is present, change the dropdown menu next to it from “Default” to Enabled.
- Click the blue Relaunch button that appears at the bottom of the screen to restart Chrome.
Alternatively, if the flag is missing, you can right-click the tab playing audio and select Mute site. This permanently silences that domain, ensuring it never plays background noise again until you explicitly unmute it.