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Editor:

  • Gabriel Brito - Microsoft

Iframe Media Pausing

Friday November 14, 2025

11:45 - 12:10 JST

TPAC 2025

Kobe Japan

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Motivation

  • Web applications that host embedded media content via iframes may wish to respond to application input by temporarily hiding the media content.
  • These applications may not want to unload the entire iframe when it's not rendered since it could generate user-perceptible performance and experience issues when showing the media content again.
    • Performance issues when recreating the frame from scratch
    • Loss of data in forms
  • User could have a negative experience if the media continues to play and emit audio when not rendered.

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Feature summary

  • Permission policy to pause media playback on hidden iframes
    • Preventing an iframe and all of its children from playing media when the iframe is not being rendered.
    • <iframe src="https://foo.media.com" allow="media-playback-while-not-visible 'none'"></iframe>
  • Integrates with:
    • HtmlMediaElements
    • Web Audio
    • Autoplay

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Status update

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Next steps

  • Publish the first version of the spec
  • Add WPTs

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Questions?

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Thanks!

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