How to customize media notifications

François Beaufort
François Beaufort
GitHub

The Media Session API allows websites to let users know what's currently playing in their browser and control it without returning to the page that launched it. The user experience can be customized through metadata in custom media notifications, media events such as playing, pausing, seeking, and track changing. These customizations are available in several contexts, including desktop media hubs, media notifications on mobile, and even on wearable devices.

Browser Support

  • Chrome: 73.
  • Edge: 79.
  • Firefox: 82.
  • Safari: 15.

Source

Screenshots of Media Session contexts.
Media hub on desktop, media notification on mobile, and a wearable device.

When a website is playing audio or video, users automatically get media notifications either in the notification tray on mobile, or the media hub on desktop. The browser does its best to show appropriate information by using the document's title and the largest icon image it can find. The Media Session API allows you to customize the media notification with some richer media metadata such as the title, artist name, album name, and artwork as shown below.

Media Session interfaces illustration.
Anatomy of a media notification on mobile.

The example below shows you how to create a custom media notification and respond to basic media actions such as play and pause.

const video = document.querySelector("video");

navigator.mediaSession.metadata = new MediaMetadata({
  title: "Never Gonna Give You Up",
  artist: "Rick Astley",
  album: "Whenever You Need Somebody",
  artwork: [
    { src: "https://via.placeholder.com/96",  sizes: "96x96" },
    { src: "https://via.placeholder.com/128", sizes: "128x128" },
    { src: "https://via.placeholder.com/256", sizes: "256x256" },
    { src: "https://via.placeholder.com/512", sizes: "512x512" },
  ],
});

navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("play", async () => {
  // Resume playback
  try {
    await video.play();
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err.name, err.message);
  }
});

navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("pause", () => {
  // Pause active playback
  video.pause();
});

video.addEventListener("play", () => {
  navigator.mediaSession.playbackState = "playing";
});

video.addEventListener("pause", () => {
  navigator.mediaSession.playbackState = "paused";
});

Further reading

Demo

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
    <link
      rel="icon"
      href="data:image/svg+xml,<svg xmlns=%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22 viewBox=%220 0 100 100%22><text y=%22.9em%22 font-size=%2290%22>📺</text></svg>"
    />
    <title>How to customize media notifications</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>How to customize media notifications</h1>
    <video controls playsinline src="https://storage.googleapis.com/media-session/caminandes/short.mp4"></video>
    <p>Credits: Media files are © copyright Blender Foundation | <a href="https://www.blender.org">www.blender.org</a>.</p>
  </body>
</html>

CSS


        :root {
  color-scheme: dark light;
}
html {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}
*,
*:before,
*:after {
  box-sizing: inherit;
}
body {
  margin: 1rem;
  font-family: system-ui, sans-serif;
}
video {
  display: block;
  margin-top: 10px;
  max-width: 100%;
}

JS


        const video = document.querySelector("video");

navigator.mediaSession.metadata = new MediaMetadata({
  title: "Caminandes 2: Gran Dillama - Blender Animated Short",
  artist: "Blender Foundation",
  artwork: [
    { src: "https://storage.googleapis.com/media-session/caminandes/artwork-96.png",  sizes: "96x96" },
    { src: "https://storage.googleapis.com/media-session/caminandes/artwork-128.png", sizes: "128x128" },
    { src: "https://storage.googleapis.com/media-session/caminandes/artwork-256.png", sizes: "256x256" },
    { src: "https://storage.googleapis.com/media-session/caminandes/artwork-512.png", sizes: "512x512" },
  ],
});

navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("play", async () => {
  // Resume playback
  try {
    await video.play();
  } catch (err) {
    console.error(err.name, err.message);
  }
});

navigator.mediaSession.setActionHandler("pause", () => {
  // Pause active playback
  video.pause();
});

video.addEventListener("play", () => {
  navigator.mediaSession.playbackState = "playing";
});

video.addEventListener("pause", () => {
  navigator.mediaSession.playbackState = "paused";
});