Play Music on Speakers and Calls on Headphones (Mac)

Here's a reasonable thing to want: music playing through your desk speakers while you take a Zoom call in your AirPods. The music fills the room, the call stays private in your ears.

macOS has one main output setting, and most apps simply follow it. But call apps are an exception: almost all of them let you pick their own speaker device. That's the key to doing this without any extra software.

How macOS handles output devices

In System Settings > Sound > Output you choose one output device, for example your desk speakers or your AirPods. Music apps, browsers and system sounds all use that device.

Many call and meeting apps, however, have their own audio settings where you can choose a microphone and a speaker separately from the Mac's setting. If you choose your headphones there, the call plays in your headphones while everything else stays on the Mac's output.

Step 1: Set the Mac's output to your speakers

1. Connect your speakers and your headphones (turn on and pair your AirPods if you use them).
2. Open System Settings > Sound > Output.
3. Select your desk speakers.

Your music app now plays through the speakers. You can also pick the output quickly from the Sound control in the menu bar or Control Center. More ways to do that: switch audio output quickly on Mac.

Step 2: Choose the headphones inside your call app

Open the call app's audio settings and select your headphones as its speaker. Menu names change between versions, so look for a speaker or output option in the audio section:

• Zoom: open Zoom's settings and go to Audio, then choose your headphones under Speaker.
• Microsoft Teams: open Teams' settings and look for the audio devices section (in recent versions under Settings > Devices or Settings > Audio devices), then choose your headphones as the speaker.
• FaceTime: during a call, check the Video menu in the menu bar for the output options, and choose your headphones.
• Discord: look for the output device option in User Settings under Voice & Video.
• Browser calls (Google Meet and similar): look for a speaker option in the meeting's audio settings. Not every browser offers a separate speaker choice, so test before an important call.

If the app has a test button for the speaker, use it: you should hear the test sound in your headphones while music keeps playing on the speakers.

Step 3: Pick a microphone that keeps your headphones sounding good

With Bluetooth headphones, using their built-in microphone often switches them into a hands-free mode that sounds worse and quieter. If that happens, choose your Mac's built-in microphone or a USB mic as the call app's microphone and keep the headphones as the speaker. More on this in Bluetooth headphones too quiet on Mac.

What about Audio MIDI Setup?

The Audio MIDI Setup app (in Applications > Utilities) can create a Multi-Output Device or an Aggregate Device. Both combine several devices, but a Multi-Output Device sends the same sound to every device in it. It won't put your music on one device and your call on another, so for this job the call app's own speaker setting is the better choice.

Check that it worked

• Play music: it should come out of the speakers.
• Join a test call or use the call app's speaker test: the call should be in your headphones only.
• If the call app has no speaker option of its own, it will follow the Mac's output. In that case, switching the Mac's output to the headphones for the call is the only built-in option.

Keeping the music from getting in the way

Even with the call in your headphones, music on the speakers can be distracting, or your mic may pick it up. You can lower the music in its own app, or pause it.

If you'd rather set levels for each app from one place, SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac gives every running app its own slider in the menu bar. For a call you might:

• Lower Spotify or Music to a quiet background level
• Leave your call app at 100%, or boost it above 100% (up to 200%) if a participant is hard to hear
• Mute your browser or a chat app with one click while the rest keeps playing

SoundDial's auto-duck can also do the lowering for you: it is on by default and, while a call app such as Zoom or Teams uses the microphone, lowers other apps to 30% of their level (adjustable from 10% to 80%, or off, in Settings > Auto-Duck), then restores them when the call ends.

SoundDial changes each app's volume level. Its panel can switch the Mac's system output (step 1), but it does not send one app to a different device, so step 2 above is still how you split music and calls between speakers and headphones. It works per app, not per browser tab. See how per-app volume control on Mac works.

SoundDial 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.