Last month, Google officially announced Chrome’s “Listen to this page” feature as part of Android’s latest features for the fall season, and this week’s update added support for background playback.
When the text-to-speech feature started rolling out in June, audio would pause when you closed Chrome. The only exception is if the browser is in the foreground when you lock your device (turn off the screen) and playback remains available when you browse other tabs.
In Chrome 130, this page will now continue to play even if you close the browser and open another Android app. The media player in the notification displays the article name and website with a 10-second rewind and skip control, along with a scrubber timeline.
Background play allows you to listen to this page equivalent to Google’s Reading Mode app. This was a bit overkill if you just wanted audio and not a simplified reader view.
Chrome allows you to adjust playback speed (from 0.5x to 4x increments), choose from 10 audio types, and enable “text highlighting and autoscrolling.” These controls are available by tapping the docked mini-player at the bottom of Chrome.
If you use “Listen to this page” often, you can display a play button between the address bar and the tab switcher. This is much faster than opening an unwieldy three-dot overflow menu.[Chrome 設定]> Go to Toolbar Shortcuts (near the bottom) and set them.
Chrome 130 for Android is widely available this week.
Chrome details:
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