Play Supported Audio in Firefox Locally

[mahengrui1]

I would like Firefox to play all supported audio formats directly in the browser, including local audio files.

Currently, when I enter the path to a local audio file in Firefox’s address bar, Firefox opens a save/open dialog instead of playing it. MP3 and MP4 files seem to behave differently.

I don’t understand why these formats behave differently. The same local audio files play perfectly when embedded in an HTML element, and they also work as expected in Chrome and Safari.

I’ve tested WAV on macOS with a fresh Firefox profile.

It would be great if Firefox could play supported audio formats directly from local file:/// , as well as from websites, while still allowing users to download files when they want to.

This would make Firefox much more convenient for listening to local audio without having to open a separate media player.

[dftf]

1. I guess this might be useful, though you'd either have to drag each music or movie file over the browser to make it play (on desktop), or tap "Open audio or video file..." on phones or tablets, then manually browse to the file.  Not sure either would be easier than a local player, like VLC Media Player, which can index your files and then make it easier to play them (especially when on a mobile or tablet device).

2. Are there not websites that already to this you could just bookmark?  For example:
Audio
https://snaeplayer.com/library/tracks 
https://notevibes.com/audio-player-online 
https://jumpshare.com/viewer/audio 
Video
https://simplevideoplayer.com/ 
https://onlineplayer.app/en/player 
https://livepush.io/mp4-player/index.html 

3. If you still want it, log this as an "idea", not a discussion here:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/idb-p/ideas