Why did my Chrome audio capture extension stop working?

Chrome's move to Manifest V3 removed background-page APIs many capture extensions were built on, and a lot of them were abandoned rather than rewritten. The built-in tab sharing dialog replaced most of what they did.

Does tab audio capture reduce the tab's volume?

No. Sharing duplicates the audio stream; the tab keeps playing normally for you while the capturing site receives a copy. Chrome may show a sharing indicator on the tab.

Can a website capture my audio without asking?

No. Tab audio always goes through the share dialog you approve, and Chrome shows an indicator while sharing is active. Closing the dialog or the tab stops the capture.

from the Verli guides

Chrome audio capture, without the broken extensions

For years the answer to capturing Chrome tab audio was a browser extension, and most of those extensions quietly died when Chrome's Manifest V3 removed the APIs they depended on. The good news: Chrome grew a built-in way to do it, and for most jobs you do not need an extension at all.

The built-in way: tab sharing with audio

Chrome lets any web app request a tab's audio through the same dialog used for screen sharing. When a site asks to share, the picker has a Chrome Tab option, and at the bottom of that dialog there is an Also share tab audio toggle. Select the tab, leave the toggle on, and the site receives the tab's sound in real time.

This is how web-based recorders, transcribers, and translators capture a meeting or video playing in another tab, with no extension and no system-level audio driver.

Capturing to do something with the audio

Open the tab with the audio (a meeting, a video, a stream).
In the transcription tool's tab, start a session; Chrome shows the share dialog.
Pick Chrome Tab, select the source tab, and keep Also share tab audio enabled.
The transcript scrolls live; copy it or save it when done.

Capture is rarely the goal by itself; the question is what you want out of the audio.

If you want a recording, any web recorder that supports tab capture works, or a screen recorder set to record the tab.

If you want text, share the tab with a live transcription tool instead of recording and transcribing later. Verli, for example, takes the tab audio and produces a live transcript, and translates it between 60+ languages while it plays. The free plan covers 60 minutes a month.

What about system-wide audio?

Tab capture only hears one tab. If the sound comes from a desktop app (the native Zoom client, a music player), the browser cannot reach it. On a Mac, that needs an app that captures system audio; see our guide to recording system audio on a Mac below.