Sound and per-tab volume
Acira shows which tabs are playing sound and lets you mute any tab. With tabs in a sidebar, a media card also gives you play, pause and a volume slider for each tab that plays sound, so two videos or a call and a song can sit at different levels.
See which tab is playing
- A tab that plays sound shows a small level meter where its close button sits. Point at the tab and the meter turns back into the close button.
- On a narrow tab or an icon-only tab, the meter becomes a small badge on the site icon.
- With more than one workspace, a workspace that is playing sound shows the meter in place of its icon in the switcher. Its tooltip says Playing sound.
Mute a tab
| Way | How |
|---|---|
| Tab menu | Right-click the tab and choose Mute tab. Choose Unmute tab to undo it. |
| Shortcut | Ctrl+M (Mute or unmute tab). Windows only. On a Mac the command has no default key. You can give it one in Settings › Shortcuts. |
| Unmute button | A muted tab keeps a speaker-off button. Click it to unmute. In the sidebar its tooltip says Unmute. |
| Media card | Click the speaker in the media card, then click the speaker mark at the left of the slider (see below), or drag the slider to zero. |
A muted tab stays muted until you unmute it, even when the page goes quiet.
The media card
The media card is part of the sidebar, so it appears only when tabs are in a sidebar. It sits at the foot of the sidebar, in a region called Playing in your tabs.
Every tab that is playing sound gets a row. A tab you muted also keeps its row. A tab you paused from the card keeps its row so you can resume it. A row goes away when you leave the page, close the tab, or ten minutes after you paused it. Several tabs can play at once, and each has its own row. A video that autoplays without sound never gets a row.
Each row has:
- The site icon and the tab's title. Click it to go to the tab (Go to tab).
- Pause or Play. This pauses everything that is playing in that tab, in every frame of the page, so a player inside an embedded frame works too. Play resumes what Pause stopped.
- A speaker button, named Volume, that turns the card into a slider.
Set a tab's volume
- Click the speaker on the tab's row. The card fades, the speaker glides to the left and a slider takes its place.
- Drag anywhere along the track, use the mouse wheel, or use the keyboard. The level shows as a percentage, or Muted at zero.
- Let go. After about 1.2 seconds, the slider turns back into the card.
| Input | Effect |
|---|---|
| Mouse wheel | Up or right is louder, down or left is quieter. One notch of a mouse wheel is one 5 percent step. |
| Right or Up | Louder by 5 percent |
| Left or Down | Quieter by 5 percent |
| PageUp or PageDown | Louder or quieter by 10 percent |
| Home or End | Muted, or 100 percent |
| M | Mutes or unmutes the tab |
| Speaker mark at the left of the slider | Mutes or unmutes the tab |
| Esc | Returns to the card at once |
If you open the slider and do not touch it, it returns to the card after about 2.6 seconds. If you opened it with the keyboard, it stays until you press Esc or move focus away. It also returns when the sidebar closes.
Moving the slider to zero mutes the tab and remembers the level you had, so unmuting brings the sound back at that level. If the level was already zero, unmuting returns it to 50 percent.
The speaker shows a cross when the tab is muted, one wave below half volume and two waves from half volume up.
How per-tab volume works, and what it cannot reach
The browser engine has no volume control for a single tab. Acira sets the volume on the page's own audio and video elements instead. It sets the level when you move the slider and when a new player starts. It does not keep setting it, so a site's own volume control keeps working.
- The level is per tab. It is kept in memory only, for as long as the tab is open and the window runs. It is not saved and does not return after a restart. It works in private and Tor tabs too, and is forgotten with the tab.
- Zero is the tab's mute, so the tab's sound mark shows muted.
- It does not reach audio that a page makes without an element in the page, such as a script that creates a sound player in memory, media inside a shadow DOM, or a site's own Web Audio mixer. For those, use mute instead.
Limits
- The media card, play and pause and the volume slider exist only with tabs in a sidebar. With tabs along the top you still get the level meter, the mute button, Mute tab and Ctrl+M.
- Play and pause work on pages that use standard audio and video elements.
- The card appears only while the sidebar is open.
Camera, microphone and screen
A tab that is using your camera, microphone or screen shows a button in its row: Stop sharing your camera and microphone with {name}. The command Stop sharing camera, microphone and screen has no default key. You can give it one in Settings › Shortcuts. Site permissions are in Site permissions and data.
Last updated October 31, 2026