How To Cast Streaming Services From Mac To Chromecast

When the Google Chromecast HDMI streaming stick — later a dongle — arrived in 2013, it was a revelation. Retailing for $35, it served as the cheapest possible way to get streaming content onto the average HDTV. Getting it down to $35 required some corners to be cut, like a lack of a physical remote control, but even this was reframed as a feature. 

That's because Chromecast was built mainly to receive inputs over your home network using your phone or computer as the remote. In time, Chromecast would come to refer to the casting protocol as much as the hardware, especially once the hardware leveled up and the streaming dongle became Chromecast with Google TV, a fully-featured Android smart TV platform complete with remote. As of August 2024, Google has stopped manufacturing Chromecast devices, so in time, Chromecast will refer to the protocol first and foremost.

Though it's always been a Google project, Chromecast has long supported Apple devices, both by encouraging developers to bake compatibility into their mobile apps and pushing the Google Chrome browser for Macs. As a result, even if you're otherwise firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, you can still get a lot of value out of a Chromecast device or a Google TV device that has Chromecast built into it. In addition, there are also plugins that let you add Chromecast functionality to other apps, like Safari. Let's take a look at exactly how to cast from your Mac to a Chromecast device.

To cast a video from Chrome on your Mac to your Chromecast receiver:

1. Open the Google Chrome web browser.
2. In the upper-right corner, click the three vertical dots/"more" menu.
3. Hover over Cast, save, and share, then click Cast.
4. Click the Chromecast receiver of your choice in the listed devices. (If that receiver's already being used for casting at the moment, then that content will be replaced by what you're casting now.). If there's no Chromecast app for the video player in question, the open tab will be cast to your Chromecast receiver.

That's it. When you're done, click the Chromecast logo button and then click Stop casting. 

If you want to cast non-copy protected videos in Safari, there's an extension for that – Send to TV, sometimes known as VideoCast for Safari. It can be useful for casting videos in cases where there's no native Chromecast support, but there's also no copy protection, which lets the extension can dig into the code of the web page and cast the relevant video or playlist link. To cast with it:

1. Install the extension from the above link to the App Store.
2. Open up the video you want to cast.
3. Click the Chromecast logo button that's now in the row of extension buttons in the upper-left corner of the screen.
4. Select your preferred Chromecast receiver from the drop-down menu.
5. Click the name of the video in the list below the drop-down. (You'll get an error message if there's copy protection.)

That's it!