Now Playing Card Can Display Media Info from Multiple Apps at Once

Now Playing Card is a GNOME Shell extension that brings media information and playback controls for multiple audio apps and browser tabs into one place: the top panel or Quick Settings.

GNOME’s built-in media controls focus on what’s playing now. If you pause one app to listen to something else, its controls can disappear. Now Playing Card keeps each player available, so you can return to a paused podcast or music track whenever you’re ready.

The extension displays each player as a card with album art, an app icon, playback controls and—when supported—a clickable progress bar. Loop and shuffle controls are also available for players that support them. To save space, the cards use an accordion layout: one is expanded at a time, while the others stay compact.

You can also show the current track, artist and controls in the panel. Settings let you adjust their position, size and behaviour, and choose a sound-wave animation, a real-time spectrum display or no animation. The extension offers further appearance and behaviour options, and hides GNOME’s standard media controller in the calendar and notifications pop-over while active.

Now Playing Card can display up to 10 players. Since not every audio source—such as an automatically playing browser video—is worth keeping in the list, you can add apps to an ignore list in the settings.

The extension supports GNOME 45 through 51, covering Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to Ubuntu 26.10.