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HTML 5 <audio> Tag

The HTML <audio> tag is used to specify audio on an HTML document.

For example, you could embed a music file on your web page for your visitors to listen to.

The <audio> tag was introduced in HTML 5.

Any content between the opening and closing <audio> tags is fallback content. This content is displayed only by browsers that don't support the <audio> tag.

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Attributes

HTML tags can contain one or more attributes. Attributes are added to a tag to provide the browser with more information about how the tag should appear or behave. Attributes consist of a name and a value separated by an equals (=) sign, with the value surrounded by double quotes. Here's an example, style="color:black;".

There are 3 kinds of attributes that you can add to your HTML tags: Element-specific, global, and event handler content attributes.

The attributes that you can add to this tag are listed below.

Element-Specific Attributes

The following table shows the attributes that are specific to this tag/element.

AttributeDescription
srcSpecifies the location of the audio file. Its value must be the URI of an audio file.
crossoriginThis attribute is a CORS settings attribute. CORS stands for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing. The purpose of the crossorigin attribute is to allow you to configure the CORS requests for the element's fetched data. The values for the crossorigin attribute are enumerated.

Possible values:

ValueDescription
anonymousCross-origin CORS requests for the element will not have the credentials flag set. In other words, there will be no exchange of user credentials via cookies, client-side SSL certificates or HTTP authentication.
use-credentialsCross-origin CORS requests for the element will have the credentials flag set.

If this attribute is not specified, CORS is not used at all.

An invalid keyword and an empty string will be handled as the anonymous value.
preloadSpecifies whether the audio should be preloaded or not, and if so, how it should be preloaded. This attribute allows the author to provide a hint to the browser/user agent about what the author thinks will lead to the best user experience. This attribute may be ignored in some instances. For example, if the user has disabled preloading or if there are network connectivity issues.

Possible values:

  • none
  • metadata
  • auto

Note that the autoplay attribute can overrride the preload attribute (since if the media plays, it naturally has to buffer first, regardless of the hint given by the preload attribute). Despite this, you can still provide both attributes.
autoplaySpecifies whether or not to start playing the audio as soon as the object has loaded.

This attribute is a boolean attribute. Therefore, the mere presence of this attribute equates to a true value. You can also specify a value that is a case-insensitive match for the attribute's canonical name, with no leading or trailing whitespace (i.e. either autoplay or autoplay="autoplay").

Possible values:

  • [Empty string]
  • autoplay
mediagroupFor synchronizing playback of audio files (or media elements). Allows you to specify media elements to link together. The value is a string of text, for example: mediagroup=movie. Audio files/media elements with the same value are automatically linked by the user agent/browser.

An example of where the mediagroup attribute could be used is where you need to overlay a sign-languge interpreter track from one movie file over the top of another.
loopSpecifies whether to keep re-playing the audio once it has finished.

This attribute is a boolean attribute. Therefore, the mere presence of this attribute equates to a true value. You can also specify a value that is a case-insensitive match for the attribute's canonical name, with no leading or trailing whitespace (i.e. either loop or loop="loop").

Possible values:

  • [Empty string]
  • loop
controlsSpecifies whether or not to display audio controls (such as a play/pause button etc).

This attribute is a boolean attribute. Therefore, the mere presence of this attribute equates to a true value. You can also specify a value that is a case-insensitive match for the attribute's canonical name, with no leading or trailing whitespace (i.e. either controls or controls="controls").

Possible values:

  • [Empty string]
  • controls

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML 5 tags.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handler Content Attributes

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

Here are the standard HTML 5 event handler content attributes.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 event handler content attributes.

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