Ogg Opus Still Not Working In Safari 18.4

Summary

Despite release notes suggesting Ogg Opus is working in Safari 18.4, testing reveals that support in Safari is still incomplete, buggy, and far behind Firefox and Chrome.

The State of Audio Recording on the Web (2025)

In Firefox and Chrome, recording works well on both mobile and desktop. Code like the following:

  const options = {mimeType: 'audio/ogg;codecs=opus'};
  const mediaRecorder = new MediaRecorder(stream, options);

Produces a media recorder recording using Ogg/Opus. However, on Safari (even 18.4), it fails, leaving your app unable to record.

Alternatives, such as omitting the codec, produce an Apple-proprietary file.

Here's hoping that Apple joins Firefox and Chrome in fully-supporting Ogg Opus. These little glitches in Safari are likely to push people towards other browsers, where such choice is available.

Further Information

Last modified on 18 May 2025 by AO