Automatic Audio Ducking on Mac: Lower Music During Calls

You're listening to music on your Mac. A Zoom call starts, and you scramble to pause Spotify or pull the volume down so you can hear the meeting. The call ends, and you bring the music back up. A few calls a day, and that's a few interruptions a day.

Audio ducking, automatically lowering background audio while something more important is playing, is standard in broadcast and streaming. On a Mac there is no general setting for it.

What audio ducking does

Ducking is simple. When a priority source becomes active, every other source drops by a set amount. When the priority source stops, everything comes back to where it was. Broadcasters use it so a host's voice sits above the music; on a computer, the obvious priority source is a call.

Does macOS duck audio on its own?

Not in a way you can use for calls. There is no switch in System Settings that says "lower other apps while I'm in a meeting".

What you may notice instead:

• VoiceOver can lower other audio while it speaks. That only applies to VoiceOver itself, not to calls or other apps.
• Bluetooth headphones often switch to a lower-quality headset mode when an app uses their microphone. Everything you hear can get quieter, music included. That isn't ducking you can adjust; it's a side effect of the headset mode.
• Call and audio apps sometimes change levels on their own. If something already lowers your music and you want it to stop, see how to disable audio ducking on Mac and stop Zoom from lowering your music.

Without a tool, the manual options are pausing music before every call or turning the whole Mac down, which also turns the call down.

Auto-ducking with SoundDial

SoundDial is a per-app volume mixer in the menu bar, and it includes auto-ducking. It's on by default. While a call is running, it lowers the other apps to 30% of their own level, and when the call ends it puts them back.

How it decides a call is running

SoundDial checks once a second whether a supported call app has audio input running, in other words whether that app is using the microphone. SoundDial never opens or records the microphone itself; it only looks at whether the call app is using it. While a call is detected, the panel header shows "Call active".

The supported call apps are Zoom, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Discord, Slack, Webex, Skype and Google Meet in Chrome. Browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge and Arc) also count as call apps when they use the microphone, so a browser-based meeting starts ducking too.

What gets lowered, and what doesn't

Every other app is lowered while the call runs: Spotify, Apple Music, a game, a video player. A few things to know:

• Call apps and browsers are never lowered. That keeps the call itself at full level. It also means music playing in a browser tab, such as a web player, stays where it is during a call.
• Slack and Discord are call apps in this list, so their own sounds aren't lowered either.
• Your sliders don't move. Each slider keeps its saved value while the app is ducked, which is how SoundDial knows exactly where to bring it back.

Choosing the duck level

Open SoundDial's Settings and go to the Auto-Duck tab. The Duck to slider runs from 10% to 80% in 5% steps. At 10% the music is barely there; at 80% it's only slightly quieter. The default of 30% keeps music audible without competing with voices.

The level is a share of each app's own setting. If Spotify sits at 60% and you duck to 30%, it plays at about 18% during the call, then returns to 60%.

What it doesn't do

Being clear about the limits saves you a confusing first call:

• It doesn't listen for voices. Ducking follows the call app's microphone use, not who is speaking. In a Discord voice channel, the game stays lowered for as long as Discord is using the mic, not only when a teammate talks.
• WhatsApp and Telegram calls aren't detected. Calls in those apps don't trigger ducking.
• You can't pick a different trigger app, for example a recording app or a music production app.
• There's no per-app opt-out. You can't tell it to leave one app alone. Your choices are the duck level, or turning auto-ducking off.

Turning it off or changing it

In Settings > Auto-Duck, turn off Enable auto-ducking to stop it entirely. If an app is lowered at that moment, it goes straight back to its slider level.

With ducking off, you still have the rest of SoundDial: a slider from 0% to 200% for every running app, a mute button per app, and volume profiles if you'd rather switch to a saved "call" mix by hand. Those also cover call apps that ducking doesn't detect: for a WhatsApp call, lower or mute the music yourself before you pick up.

More detail on the call setup: lower music during calls on Mac. Everything else the app does: features.

SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac needs macOS 14.2 or later and costs €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription.

Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.