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MediaSession: playbackState property

The playbackState property of the MediaSession interface indicates whether the current media session is playing or paused.

Value

A string indicating the current playback state of the media session. The value may be one of the following:

none

The browsing context doesn't currently know the current playback state, or the playback state is not available at this time.

paused

The browser's media session is currently paused. Playback may be resumed.

playing

The browser's media session is currently playing media, which can be paused.

Example

The following example sets up two functions for playing and pausing, then uses them as callbacks with the relevant action handlers. Each function harnesses the playbackState property to indicate whether the audio is playing or paused.

js

const actionHandlers = [
  // play
  [
    "play",
    async () => {
      // play our audio
      await audioEl.play();
      // set playback state
      navigator.mediaSession.playbackState = "playing";
      // update our status element
      updateStatus(allMeta[index], "Action: play  |  Track is playing…");
    },
  ],
  [
    "pause",
    () => {
      // pause out audio
      audioEl.pause();
      // set playback state
      navigator.mediaSession.playbackState = "paused";
      // update our status element
      updateStatus(allMeta[index], "Action: pause  |  Track has been paused…");
    },
  ],
];

for (const [action, handler] of actionHandlers) {
  try {
    navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler(action, handler);
  } catch (error) {
    console.log(`The media session action "${action}" is not supported yet.`);
  }
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
playbackState 73 79 82 No 60 15 No 57
82Firefox exposes the API, but does not provide a corresponding user-facing media control interface.
43 15 7.0

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MediaSession/playbackState