No sound when sharing a tab? How to share tab audio

The picture arrives, your partner is watching the opening scene, and there's total silence on their end. The cause is almost always one of two things: a small switch in the browser's share window that was off, or a share that was a window instead of a tab.

How to share a tab with sound in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera and Arc

All five are built on Chromium, so the share window works much the same way, though labels can differ slightly between browsers. When a website or call app asks to share your screen:

1. Open the film or video in its own tab first, and start it playing for a second so you know it has sound.
2. Start the share in your call app. The browser's picker opens.
3. Choose the tab option (in Chrome it's labelled Chrome Tab), not Window or Entire Screen.
4. Pick the tab with the video.
5. Check that the tab-audio switch is on. In Chrome it reads Also share tab audio.
6. Press Share, then ask the other person if they can hear it before you settle in.

Google's Meet help says Chrome shares a tab's audio by default, but defaults change between versions and apps, and the switch is easy to knock off. Check it every time.

If there's no audio switch in the picker at all, the app you're sharing into didn't ask for sound. Look in its settings for an option to share audio, or use a different app.

What Firefox and Safari can and can't do

Both can share your screen or a window from a website, but neither sends the sound. MDN's browser compatibility data, which tracks what each browser supports, lists audio capture as unsupported in Firefox and Safari as of October 2026.

So if you usually browse in Firefox or Safari, open the video in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera or Arc just for the share. Your bookmarks can stay where they are.

Why window and full-screen shares often have no sound

A browser can send a tab's sound because the browser itself is producing it. A window or a whole screen is different: your operating system mixes sound by app and by speaker, not by window, so there's no neat "sound of this window" to grab. At best, the browser can offer all of your computer's sound, which it calls system audio.

What you get depends on your computer:

The Mac row is the one that catches people out. MDN's data still notes that on macOS only a tab's audio can be captured, but testing by Addpipe, a video-recording company, found that system audio for whole-screen and window shares arrived in Chrome 141 on macOS 14.2 or newer. On recent macOS you'll also need to allow your browser under the Mac's screen and system audio recording permission, which Google's Meet help walks through.

Even where system audio works, it sends everything: notification pings, a message you're playing, and sometimes the call itself, which can echo the other person's voice back to them. Google's Meet help says to set your system's default audio output device when sharing system audio, to avoid echoes. For a film, a tab share is cleaner.

Desktop call apps work differently from browsers. Zoom's desktop app, for example, has a Share sound checkbox in the bottom-left corner of its share window that has to be ticked before you click Share.

Fixing echo, double audio and feedback

Most sound problems during a share come from a microphone hearing a speaker.

They hear the film twice, slightly out of step

Your microphone is picking up the film from your speakers and sending it on top of the tab audio. The fix is headphones for whoever is sharing. If you'd rather stay on speakers, keep the volume low and the laptop's microphone away from them.

You hear the film, or your own voice, echoing back

The same thing on their end: their speakers are feeding their microphone. Headphones on their side fix it. If you shared your whole screen with system audio, the call itself may be going back out with the film; switch to a tab share.

A rising squeal or howl

That's feedback, usually from two devices in the same room joined to the same call, such as a laptop and a phone. Leave the call on one of them, or mute the microphone and speaker on the second.

Getting the volume right

• Film drowning out your voices: lower the volume with the video player's own slider in the shared tab, then check with the other person. A tab share generally carries the sound as the player sends it, so your computer's main volume mostly changes only what you hear; test it, because it can vary by browser and system.
• Film too quiet for them: the player's slider is often lower than you think. Turn it up, and turn your own computer's volume down if it's then too loud for you.
• Mumbled dialogue: switch on captions in the player. They travel with the picture, so the other person gets them too.
• Watching on a phone: the phone's volume buttons control it, and earbuds help a lot. It also stops the phone's microphone from picking up the film.

If the sound is fine but the picture is black, that's copy protection on the streaming service, not an audio setting: why that happens. And for choosing a method in the first place, see every way to watch together compared.

Before you press Share

Copy checklist

• Use desktop Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera or Arc for the share
• Put the video in its own tab and check it plays with sound
• Choose the tab option, not Window or Entire Screen
• Make sure the tab-audio switch is on
• Put headphones on the person sharing
• Ask the other person to confirm they can hear it before the film starts

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Key takeaways

Copy

• Share a tab, not a window or screen, and switch on the tab-audio option before pressing Share.
• Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera and Arc can share tab audio on the desktop; Firefox and Safari send no sound from a browser share.
• Window and full-screen shares can at best send all system sound, and on a Mac only in recent Chrome on recent macOS.
• Echo and double audio come from a microphone hearing speakers: headphones for the sharer fix most of it.
• Set the film's level with the player's own volume slider in the shared tab, and check with the other person.