Windows 11 could finally get a handy audio sharing feature it should’ve had a decade ago

• Windows 11 could be getting a new ‘shared audio’ option
• The feature, spotted in testing, allows for piping audio to multiple speakers
• It’s not clear exactly how it works yet, though, as it’s just hidden in testing in an early form, and not live in preview builds yet

If you’ve ever wanted to play music (or anything else) from your Windows 11 PC through more than one speaker, it looks like your multi-output dreams may be coming true.

At least based on the findings of a well-known leaker on X, PhantomOfEarth, who has been doing the usual combing through hidden bits of Windows 11, and found the relevant feature, then enabled it with a configuration utility (in a preview build).

As you can see in the above post, the feature is fired up via a ‘shared audio’ option in Windows 11’s quick settings, and it’s apparently in the current Dev and Beta preview builds of the operating system.

Click on it and you’re presented with a panel that allows you to select multiple output devices to receive audio from the PC. Tick the speakers you’d like to use, and Windows 11 will pipe sound through all of them.

Analysis: sounds like a plan

What we aren’t shown in this leak is whether the connection can be made wirelessly (via Bluetooth), or has to be wired (with a cable), or indeed whether two Bluetooth speakers can both be hooked up for simultaneous playback.

We guess the capability isn’t functional in any way yet – if it was, presumably the leaker would have shared further details on how it works. Remember, this isn’t live in testing – shared audio remains work in the background of Windows 11 for now – and it may not ever be realized. However, it makes sense that Microsoft would want to provide this functionality, given that it’s long overdue.

In fact, it’s a bit of a headscratcher why Microsoft didn’t enable this in a version of Windows many moons ago. While it may admittedly be something of a niche feature, it’s undoubtedly of use to some people – you only need to look at forum posts online enquiring about how to do this in Windows. The answer to that question previously was to install a third-party app, but having the ability native in Windows 11 – and easily accessible via quick settings – is clearly a useful addition for the OS.

Assuming Microsoft does push forward with the share audio capability, of course, and I’m betting that this should go live in test builds before too long.

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