How to Silence Noisy Tabs in Chrome

It's one of the most annoying and potentially embarrassing things that could happen on your PC. You're sitting at your desk working and all of a sudden you hear music and voices coming from your computer. Perhaps your boss hears it, too. One of the sites you've loaded in your browser is playing video or audio, and you need it to stop now. Here's how to find and quiet noisy tabs in the Chrome browser on your computer. (Mobile Chrome doesn't do this yet.)

Enabling Audio Muting

1. Navigate to Chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting by typing it into your address bar and hitting Enter.

2. Click Enable under the "Enable tab audio muting UI control" menu option.

Once this feature is enabled, it will stay active every time you use the browser. 

Mute a Single Tab

1. Locate a tab with the speaker icon on it. The speaker icon indicates that this Web page is currently playing sound.

2. Click the speaker icon. 

A red ring should remain around the speaker to indicate that it is muted.

MORE: Top 11 Google Chrome Tips: Control Your Tabs, Work Offline, More

Mute Multiple Tabs

1. Click the first tab you wish to mute. Do not click its speaker icon.

2. CTRL + Click on additional tabs you want to mute. The last tab you click on will be open, but all of the selected tabs will appear in the foreground.

3. Right click on the active tab and select Mute Tabs.

Avram Piltch
Online Editorial Director
The official Geeks Geek, as his weekly column is titled, Avram Piltch has guided the editorial and production of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's real-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Battery Test. He holds a master's degree in English from NYU.