If you have a keyboard with dedicated media keys (Play/Pause, Skip, Previous), you probably use them to control Spotify or iTunes while working. However, if you are also browsing the web with Google Chrome, you may have noticed that pressing the “Play/Pause” button often pauses a random YouTube video or Twitch stream you left open in a background tab instead of controlling your desktop music app.
This happens because Chrome’s “Hardware Media Key Handling” feature intercepts global media commands, assuming you want to control browser audio first. If you want your media keys to exclusively control your dedicated desktop music player, you must disable this feature in Chrome’s hidden settings.
How to Stop Chrome from Hijacking Media Keys
You cannot change this behaviour in the standard Chrome settings menu. You must disable the flag directly.
- Open the Google Chrome browser.
- Click inside the address bar at the very top of the window.
- Type the following exact command and press Enter:
chrome://flags/#hardware-media-key-handling - The browser will load the “Experiments” page. The setting labelled “Hardware Media Key Handling” will be highlighted in yellow.
- Click the drop-down menu next to this setting (which will currently say “Default” or “Enabled”).
- Select Disabled from the drop-down list.
- A large blue button labelled Relaunch will appear at the bottom right corner of the window. Click it to restart the browser.
Once Chrome reopens, it will no longer listen for your keyboard’s media keys. You can now press the Play/Pause button on your keyboard, and it will flawlessly pause your Spotify desktop app, even if you have ten different YouTube tabs open in the background.