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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-29T08:01:23+00:00

Is there a way to access the media keys with Javascript from within a

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Is there a way to access the “media keys” with Javascript from within a browser tab/window?

I am mainly interested in a google chrome solution.

Using the following code, there doesn’t seem to be an event generated for the media keys:

<html>
<body onKeyDown="showKeyCode(event)">
    <script type="text/javascript">

        function showKeyCode(event) {
            alert(event.keyCode);
        }

    </script>
</body>
</html>

Am I missing something? Could I do better with a Google Chrome extension??

Update: to address this problem I crafted the following tools:

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Edit: There is now explicit support for media keys. The answer below is deprecated. See @thakis answer below.

    Old 2012 answer

    Regarding whether you could do better than a Chrome Extension: no you could not – I’ve made a content script for a site, and running it within the current stable release of Chrome 16 on OS X 10.7. The script is simple enough:

    console.log('Content script loading');

$("body").bind("keyup",function(event){
    console.log(event.keyCode);
})

    And it shows that no events are triggered for the back, play/pause, forward, mute, volume down or volume up keys.

    Interesting the unused F5 key goes generate a keycode, so you could potentially use it as an alternative if you wish.

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