About a month ago I bought my first Apple TV. I was very excited about it and couldn’t wait to see what cool stuffs I can do using it. But I realized that from my iOS devices, the Chromecast is more functional as compared to the AppleTV. In this post, we will look at how you can use your Chromecast using only your Safari browser.
how to chromecast from safari
Step1: On your Chrome Browser, go to Google Cast Extension page and install it on your web browser. This extension is similar to the one we use in Google Chrome (please note that this plugin is not the same as Google Cast app). Once this plugin is installed, you will see a Google cast extension logo in your chrome browser toolbar.
Step 2: Turn on the Chromecast device by pressing the button at the back of device. A blue light will appear on your chromecast, indicating that it is ready to use. Now go to Settings > About on your Chrome browser and note down the number shown there.
Step 3: Go to Google Cast Extension page on your browser. Now click on the icon of three vertical dots at the top right corner of the screen, scroll down and select “Cast Tab”. You should see a dropdown list with all open tabs in your browser. Select the tab(s) that you want to play on Chromecast. Once selected, you will see that the extension will give you a unique id for your Chromecast device.
Step 4: Now open any website in your Safari browser, say www.google.com . Now press “Cmd + Shift + I” to bring up the developer tools of the page. If you are using newer versions of safari browser, then press “Ctrl + Alt + I”. Now click on the Console Tab. In here, you should see a square shaped icon at the top left corner of the screen. Click it and select “Media Router”.
Step 5: A new window will open with a unique id for your Chromecast device in there. Now copy the number from Google Cast Extension page and paste it here. Press Enter and you will see a success message with a few more details.
Step 6: Now check whether the streaming is working or not. Please note that there might be a difference in your experience as compared to mine because of different factors such as Wifi speed , number of devices connected, distance from router etc. I am using a Macbook with Wifi 802.11n and the streaming is working fine for me.
If you are able to stream, you will see media controls in your web browser tab when playing the content. You can use these controls to play/pause or close the video. If there is no action, then it means that your Chromecast device is not able to connect to your wifi router.
You will have to follow Step 4 again and re-enter the new id.
These are all of the steps needed for streaming content on Chromecast using only your Safari browser. If you would like to try this, please note that it might not work in some cases because this was tested on Google Chrome and YoutTube. There might be other
websites that don’t support this feature. You can comment below if you are facing any issue while streaming contents on Chromecast using your Safari browser.
There is also an alternate method to do this using Google Chrome’s “Google Cast” extension, which I will look into in my next post (if requested by more than one people). So keep reading and stay tuned for more updates.
Conclusion:
In this article, we have learned how you can use your Chromecast using only your Safari browser. The procedure is same for other iOS devices too, except that they won’t be able to stream content from their iOS device. For iOS users it will only work if the content is already present on a website in a mobile format.
