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<bgsound>

Obsolete
This feature is obsolete. Although it may still work in some browsers, its use is discouraged since it could be removed at any time. Try to avoid using it.

Non-standard
This feature is non-standard and is not on a standards track. Do not use it on production sites facing the Web: it will not work for every user. There may also be large incompatibilities between implementations and the behavior may change in the future.

The Internet Explorer only HTML Background Sound element (<bgsound>) sets up a sound file to play in the background while the page is used; use <audio> instead.

Do not use this!In order to embed audio in a Web page, you should be using the <audio> element.

Attributes

balance
This attribute defines a number between -10,000 and +10,000 that determines how the volume will be divided between the speakers.
loop
This attribute indicates the number of times a sound is to be played and either has a numeric value or the keyword infinite.
src
This attribute specifies the URL of the sound file to be played, which must be one of the following types: .wav, .au, or .mid.
volume
This attribute defines a number between -10,000 and 0 that determines the loudness of a page's background sound.

Example

<bgsound src="sound1.mid">

<bgsound src="sound2.au" loop="infinite">

Usage notes

Historically, the <embed> element could be used with audio player plug-ins to play audio in the background in most browsers. However, even this is no longer appropriate, and you should use <audio> instead, since it's more capable, more compatible, and doesn't require plug-ins.

You can write <bgsound> as a self-closing tag (<bgsound />); however, since this element is non-standard, doing so will still not validate.

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support No No No1 Yes No No
Feature Android webview Chrome for Android Edge mobile Firefox for Android IE mobile Opera Android iOS Safari
Basic support No No No No1 Yes No No

1. Up to Firefox 22, even if not supporting this element, Firefox was associating it with HTMLSpanElement. This was fixed then and now the associated element is an HTMLUnknownElement as required by the specification.

See also

  • The <audio>, which is the standard element to embed audio in a document.

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https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/bgsound