Play your downloaded videos on the Chromecast™ (any file type).
Google Chromecast (and its faster, smarter sibling, Chromecast Ultra) seem like they’re magic. The cheap, tiny, self-contained dongle is about the size of a cookie. Plug it into your TV and you can view just about anything from your Mac laptop on the big screen. Video, photos, streaming music, video conferencing, you name it and Chromecast can likely handle it.
Here’s how to Chromecast from Mac onto any TV or monitor.
What To Cast
There are all sorts of reasons to cast what’s on your Mac’s screen to your TV:
- Watch Amazon Prime Video on your TV (and overcome Chromecast’s lack of compatibility with Amazon Prime) by casting through the Chrome browser
- Share whatever’s on your screen with everyone in the room (vacation pictures, videos, work projects, status boards)
- Show Albums from your Google Photos
- Send presentations and slideshows from your Macbook on any HDMI screen cable-free
- Put a Google Hangouts call onto a big screen so you don’t have to crowd around your laptop’s (relatively) small screen
What Do I Need to Cast from Mac?
- Chromecast or Chromecast Ultra
- A TV or monitor with an available HDMI port
- Macbook running OS 10.9 (Mavericks) or above
- RECOMMENDED: Macbook Pro 2011 or newer, Macbook Air 2012 or newer
- MINIMUM: Macbook Pro 2010, Macbook Air 2011
- Access to your Wi-Fi network
- The most current version of Chrome browser
- About 10 minutes
Haven't set up your Chromecast yet? Check out our handy How-To. We'll wait here.
- Open Chrome. For now, let's assume you want to get caught up on Amazon Prime’s delightful The Marvelous Mrs. Maiselbefore Season 2 debuts. Good choice!
- Browse to the window you want to cast. Remember, nearly anything you can do in a Chrome window, you can cast: video, slideshows, presentations, music, web apps, and lots more.
- Choose which of your connected Google devices to cast to. The example shows three connected devices: 'Bedroom Chromecast,' 'The Living Room TV,' and 'Orange Mini.' Let's cast to The Living Room TV.
- Select Remote screen to cast fullscreen to your TV only.Then adjust the volume slider on the same window. Note that this volume control is separate from your TV’s volume. You may need to adjust both your cast’s volume and that of your TV to get the best sound level.See how the tab being cast now displays a blue screen icon? This is useful for keeping track of which tab is casting if you've got a lot of tabs open.
- Control playback of whatever you're casting from your Mac's screen using the Play, Pause, Forward, and Back on-screen buttons.
- When you're done watching, viewing, sharing, whatever-ing, click STOP to release the Chromecast.
Do I Need Install An Extension from the Chrome Store?
No. The ability to cast without an extension has been built into Chrome for Mac since August 2016. So if you've updated Chrome anytime within the past few years, Chrome should handle casting exactly as we’ve outlined here.
What Can I Do If Video Playback Isn’t Ideal?
For best results, close all the open tabs, especially if they’re doing any streaming. You might also consider closing any inactive apps on your Mac. The fewer things your Mac’s processor has to distract it, the more energy it can put into making your cast content buttery smooth.
A Quick Note On Performance
As long as you’re running Mac OS X 10.9, you should be able to cast just about anything Chrome can display.
Your video streaming experience is a processor-intensive experience, and quality is going to be a function of the age and performance of your Mac.
Google’s guidance on minimum system requirements is accurate. Even a bone-stock 2011 MacBook Air should be able to cast streaming video without hiccups.
Casting from a Late 2008 13” MacBook Core 2 Duo with maxed-out RAM, we found the MacBook struggled to send video of an acceptable quality. Even scaling back Prime Video’s Video Quality to Good barely smoothed out the relatively modest motion processing demands of our test video, rendering picture quality that was only passable at best.
Net-net, pay attention to Google’s system requirements and you should be good to go.
Even if you're already running an Apple TV, Roku, or one of Amazon's Fire TV devices, adding a Chromecast is a low-cost way to make sharing content from your Mac quick and easy.
This app is only available on the App Store for iOS devices.
Description
Set up, manage, and control your Google Home and Chromecast devices, plus hundreds of connected home products like lights, cameras, thermostats, and more – all from the Google Home app.
One view of your home.
Control, organize, and manage compatible lights, cameras, TVs, and more, all from just one place. It works like a remote with hundreds of smart devices from the brands you love, including Google Home and Chromecast devices, Google Nest thermostats, and Google Nest cameras.
A tap or two is all it takes.
The app gives you shortcuts for the things you do most, like playing music or dimming the lights when you want to start a movie. Control it all with just a tap – and get to the good stuff faster. Create routines that allow you to turn on lights, check the weather, play the news, and more with one simple command.
One app. Hundreds of possibilities.
Make home life even more comfortable. Explore new content and features, and make the most of your Google Home and other compatible devices.
* Some features may not be available in all regions. Compatible devices required.
One view of your home.
Control, organize, and manage compatible lights, cameras, TVs, and more, all from just one place. It works like a remote with hundreds of smart devices from the brands you love, including Google Home and Chromecast devices, Google Nest thermostats, and Google Nest cameras.
A tap or two is all it takes.
The app gives you shortcuts for the things you do most, like playing music or dimming the lights when you want to start a movie. Control it all with just a tap – and get to the good stuff faster. Create routines that allow you to turn on lights, check the weather, play the news, and more with one simple command.
One app. Hundreds of possibilities.
Make home life even more comfortable. Explore new content and features, and make the most of your Google Home and other compatible devices.
* Some features may not be available in all regions. Compatible devices required.
What’s New
With the Google Home app you can control and manage compatible lights, cameras, TVs, and more – all from one place.
New in this update:
• Bug fixes and improvements
New in this update:
• Bug fixes and improvements
143.9K Ratings
Google Home Facelift A Success!!
The first iteration of the Google Home app was fine for launch, but there are certain features and refinements that were missing, then they made it a little convoluted by switching you back and forth between Home and Assistant for some reason, but this new version is exactly what I'd expect from Google. The UI/UX is phenomenal and the features you actually expect are right at your fingertips when you open the app, such as the ability to see every device and manage their basic operations with one click and not having to dig through various apps to target such devices manually. The addition of pairing a Bluetooth speaker has been long awaited but also the ability to make a speaker group and simultaneously play music through all of them is another feature I had been waiting for as someone who has speakers throughout the house.
Google, you truly nailed it with this update and I really hope the majority of the updates are minor fixes and routine maintenance, because as it stands, this app feels polished and feature rich!
Google, you truly nailed it with this update and I really hope the majority of the updates are minor fixes and routine maintenance, because as it stands, this app feels polished and feature rich!
You learn more by testing
I honestly wasn't expecting much since I stayed at a home that had Alexa. I genuinely love the Google home so much. It's easy to maneuver and I like that it resumes from where you left off if you accidentally stop it.
As for improvements, I'd love more options for news (especially a astrology and astronomy and Broadway based one) and to be able to read the full description of each news option somehow. Perhaps a transcript of the news as well to read along. I'd like it if you could go through your past questions/requests to the Google home as well just so I don't have to repeat myself if it speaks too fast. For lingists I think it would be neat if you could do a bilingual option (I know you can do multiple languages but it wouldn't answer to me when i spoke English even though it was the primary language). It would be nice to practice other languages with the Home's help. Or an option to put topics you want to stay up-to-date on and it will Google search and read the newest articles.
As for improvements, I'd love more options for news (especially a astrology and astronomy and Broadway based one) and to be able to read the full description of each news option somehow. Perhaps a transcript of the news as well to read along. I'd like it if you could go through your past questions/requests to the Google home as well just so I don't have to repeat myself if it speaks too fast. For lingists I think it would be neat if you could do a bilingual option (I know you can do multiple languages but it wouldn't answer to me when i spoke English even though it was the primary language). It would be nice to practice other languages with the Home's help. Or an option to put topics you want to stay up-to-date on and it will Google search and read the newest articles.
Google home keeps falling short
Compared to Alexa:
(1) home hub doesn’t show the time at night (the “ambient light sensor” turns the screen 100% black) (2) can’t call a specific room (3) can’t play a song without blabbering for a minute about every artist and service involved (4) can’t set family reminders that go off for everyone (5) the hub devices can’t hear anyone speak well (6) google can’t play popular songs like the Lion King (featured in their own commercials) without manual intervention otherwise they play knockoffs (7) will only play white noise for an hour unless specified (8) don’t have a quiet mode so if you ask something at night have to listen to it scream across your house nonsense like “this is what white noise sounds like” (9) assistant only sometimes connects to the devices and when it does it can’t even perform the same tasks (eg play white noise) (10) Hub doesn’t display the time if the hub is doing anything besides nothing which makes it a terrible bedside device -even white noise turns off the clock which is stupid by every measure
(1) home hub doesn’t show the time at night (the “ambient light sensor” turns the screen 100% black) (2) can’t call a specific room (3) can’t play a song without blabbering for a minute about every artist and service involved (4) can’t set family reminders that go off for everyone (5) the hub devices can’t hear anyone speak well (6) google can’t play popular songs like the Lion King (featured in their own commercials) without manual intervention otherwise they play knockoffs (7) will only play white noise for an hour unless specified (8) don’t have a quiet mode so if you ask something at night have to listen to it scream across your house nonsense like “this is what white noise sounds like” (9) assistant only sometimes connects to the devices and when it does it can’t even perform the same tasks (eg play white noise) (10) Hub doesn’t display the time if the hub is doing anything besides nothing which makes it a terrible bedside device -even white noise turns off the clock which is stupid by every measure
Information
Requires iOS 10.3 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
English, Afrikaans, Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cambodian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Simplified Chinese, Singhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Family Sharing
With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.