OS X El Capitan: Mute all tabs in Safari

Have you ever loaded a Web page only to find that it has an auto-play video or some other obnoxious, sound generating annoyance? Well now there’s a way to immediately silence all of the tabs you have open in Safari in OS X El Capitan.

In this tip I’ll show you how to quickly mute all tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan. And I’ll also show you how to mute individual tabs, and how you can mute all other tabs except the one you want to hear. 

How to mute all tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan

It’s very quick and easy to mute all tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan, just follow these steps:

1. Open a new tab that is not playing any sound.

2. Click the Mute All Tabs button in the URL address bar.

3. All open tabs in your Safari window will be muted.

4. Click on Mute All Tabs again to unmute all of your tabs if you wish.

How to mute individual tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan

You also have the option of muting individual tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan:

1. Click the sound icon on the tab you want to mute and the sound will stop.

2. Click the sound icon again to start hearing sounds again from that tab.

How to mute other tabs while listening to one tab in Safari in OS X El Capitan

And you can also opt to turn off the sound for all other tabs while still listening to one in Safari in OS X El Capitan:

1. Click and hold the sound icon on the tab you want to hear.

2. A menu will appear with two options: Mute This Tab and Mute Other Tabs.

3. Click on Mute Other Tabs.

4. All sounds from your other tabs will be muted.

5. To unmute the other tabs, just click and hold on the sound icon on your current tab and then click on Unmute Other Tabs.

Why I love the ability to mute tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan

Whether you opt to mute one tab, all tabs or other tabs, it’s very clear that managing tab sounds is a welcome addition to OS X El Capitan’s feature set. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve loaded a web page and been annoyed with video or sound that plays automatically.

And it’s even worse if you have a whole bunch of tabs open, and can’t quite figure out which one of the damn things is making the annoying noise! So being able to quickly terminate all sounds from all tabs is a very important feature for all OS X El Capitan users.

Kudos to Apple for including the ability to mute all tabs in Safari in OS X El Capitan. It might not be the most earth-shattering feature ever included in a web browser, but it is already one of the most useful ones for folks that don’t want web pages automatically inflicting sound on them when they visit a site.

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