Media Keys 'rewind' and forward' (F7, F9) not working for browser videos

1

Do the Rewind and Forward media keys only work for Apple Music?

What works:

  • For songs playing in Apple Music, the ‘rewind’ (F7), ‘play/pause’ (F8), ‘fast_forward’ (F9) media keys all work, even if the Music application is not focused.
  • When playing a video in Safari, on the MacOS Monterey ‘Now Playing’ interface I can manually click the play/pause, rewind, and fast-forward controls.

However, for videos playing in a Safari, only the play/pause (F8) media key works; the rewind (F7) or fast-forward (F8) keys do nothing.

I reproduced the same behavior (only the play/pause key working) in QuickTime, Safari, and Google Chrome.

Tests:

  • tested in a new user account without any apps installed
  • ensured system preferences > keyboard “Use F1, F2, etc. key as standard function keys” was unchecked (also tried it checked)
  • quit/uninstalled/disabled all possible conflicting apps (keyboard maestro, better touch tool, karibiner, shortcuts, services)

Is it possible to make these rewind and fast-forward media keys control video players in the browser?

Thank you.

2

My specific use case:

  • Playing youtube video in Safari, in the background
  • Focused in Text Editor

I have temporarily solved it with a keyboard maestro action that switches to Safari, simulates a keystroke, and switches back to Text Editor. But it is not ideal.

3

Maybe you are looking for something like this?

http://beardedspice.github.io

BeardedSpice is a menubar application for Mac OSX that allows you to control web based media players and some native apps with the media keys found on Mac keyboards. It is an extensible application that works with Chrome (Canary, Yandex, Chromium) and Safari, and can control any tab with an applicable media player.

2 Likes
4

Thanks @slyumer! Bearded spice did give my media keys more control! However, it turns out, it skips the entire youtube video, and not just 15seconds forward/back (I didn’t mention this was my exact use case!). Surprisingly, my temporary keyboard maestro hack is enjoyable! I will be using BeardedSpice for other applications though. Much appreciated!

5

Hey, do you mind sharing the keyboard maestro hack with me? Thanks! :blush:

6

This is my hack.
I send the spacebar keystroke to chrome (or to any other app where you are playing the video) when i press alt+i which plays/pauses the video.

I do the same for the following to go forward back.
alt+u → left arrow
alt+o → right arrow

This is better than switching back forth between apps as mentioned in the solution by @mcgrealife

Screenshot 2024-02-23 at 03.51.10
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