The Keyboard Hijack
Most modern keyboards feature dedicated media keys (Play/Pause, Next Track, Previous Track). Historically, these keys controlled the primary media player on your desktop, such as Spotify, iTunes, or Windows Media Player. However, Google Chrome includes a feature called “Hardware Media Key Handling.” If you have a YouTube video playing in a background tab, or even a muted advertisement running on a news site, Chrome intercepts your keyboard’s media commands. When you press the physical “Play/Pause” button on your keyboard hoping to pause Spotify, Chrome will often pause the YouTube video instead, completely hijacking your hardware controls.
Revoking Chrome’s Media Control
To restore your keyboard’s functionality to your dedicated desktop applications and stop Google Chrome from automatically intercepting hardware media keys, you must disable the feature via Chrome’s experimental flags.
Open a new tab in Google Chrome. Click into the address bar, type exactly chrome://flags, and hit Enter. In the search box at the top of the experiments page, type Hardware Media Key Handling. The specific flag will appear highlighted below. Click the dropdown menu located to its right, which is likely set to “Default.” Change this setting to Disabled. A blue “Relaunch” button will appear at the bottom of the screen. Click it to restart the browser. Once Chrome reopens, it will completely ignore any input from your keyboard’s media buttons, ensuring that pressing “Pause” always controls your primary desktop music application.