Google only officially announced Chrome’s “Listen to this page” capability last month as part of the latest Android features for the fall season, and an update this week adds support for background playback.
When the text-to-speech capability started rolling out in June, closing Chrome would pause that audio. The only exception was if the browser was in the foreground when you locked your device (turned off the screen), while playback remained available when you browsed other tabs.
Now, with Chrome 130, Listen to this page continues if you exit the browser to open another Android app. The media player in notifications notes the article name and website with 10-second rewind and skip controls in addition to the scrubber timeline.
Background playback brings Listen to this page on par with Google’s Reading mode app, which was a bit much if you just wanted audio and not a simplified reader view.
The Chrome offering lets you adjust playback speed (0.5x to 4x increments), choose from 10 different voices, and enable “Highlight text & auto scroll.” These controls are available by tapping the docked miniplayer at the bottom of Chrome.
If you use Listen to this page a lot, you can have the play button appear between the address bar and tab switcher. This is much faster than opening the unwieldy three-dot overflow menu. Go to Chrome Settings > (near the bottom) Toolbar shortcut to set.
Chrome 130 for Android is widely rolling out this week.
More on Chrome:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.