How to control the volume of a single Chrome tab
Chrome only gives you one volume control per tab: mute, or don't. There's no built-in way to turn one tab down to 30% while another stays at 100%, and if you've gone looking for a slider in Chrome's settings, you already know it isn't there. This guide shows the two things people try first, why they fall short, and the actual way to get a real per-tab volume slider.
What people usually try first
The system volume mixer. Windows' volume mixer (and macOS's equivalent) lets you control volume per application, not per tab. If your browser has ten tabs open, all ten share one slider. Great for turning down "Chrome" as a whole, useless for turning down just the YouTube tab while a call runs in another.
Muting the tab entirely. Chrome's tab mute (the speaker icon on the tab itself) is real and it works, but it's all-or-nothing. You lose the audio completely instead of just turning it down, which isn't what you wanted if you still want to hear it, just quieter.
Neither gets you an actual slider. For that, you need something sitting between the tab and your speakers that can adjust each tab independently.
The actual method: a per-tab volume slider
Weft is a new tab dashboard with a Tab Audio widget built for exactly this: a volume slider for every tab currently playing sound, plus a boost option that goes past 100% for tabs that are natively too quiet.
To get there:
- 1Open a new tab (Weft replaces Chrome's default new tab page).
- 2Open the widget picker (edit mode, then the add-widget button in the dock) and add Tab Audio from the Utilities category.
- 3Play audio in any tab. It appears in the widget automatically, with its own slider.
- 4Drag the slider anywhere from 0% to 150%. 150% is a real boost past the tab's native volume, not just full volume relabeled, useful for a video that's quiet even maxed out.
- 5There's also a mute-all toggle if you want to silence everything at once without touching individual sliders.
Honest limits
Two things worth saying plainly:
- The widget only shows tabs that are actually playing audio. A silent tab won't appear until it starts making sound.
- This is a new tab dashboard, not a standalone browser extension that just adds a volume icon. You're installing Weft to get the slider, and Weft also replaces your new tab page with widgets for tasks, habits, prayer times, and more. If all you want is the volume control, that's still a fair trade, just know what you're getting.
The rest of it
Tab Audio is just one of Weft's widgets. If a real per-tab volume slider solved your problem, Weft is free to install.