Windows Volume Mixer for Mac: Per-App Volume Control

If you switched from Windows, one of the first things you miss is the Volume Mixer: right-click the speaker icon in the taskbar, open the mixer, and every running app has its own slider. Turn Chrome down, keep Discord loud, mute Spotify, all in one place.

macOS doesn't ship anything like it. Here's what you can do with what's built in, and how to get the Windows-style mixer back.

Does macOS have a volume mixer?

No. macOS has one output volume for everything. Whatever level you set in the menu bar or with the volume keys applies to every app at once. There is no per-app option hidden in System Settings, and no Terminal command that adds one.

The only other built-in slider is the alert volume in System Settings > Sound, and it only affects system alert sounds, not your apps. More on the background in Why doesn't Mac have a volume mixer like Windows?

Native workarounds

Without a mixer, you can still get part of the way there:

• Use each app's own volume control. Music, Spotify, most video players and the YouTube player have their own slider. Set the system volume to a comfortable maximum, then lower individual apps inside the app.
• Mute browser tabs. In Safari, click the speaker icon in the tab or address bar to silence audio. In Chrome, right-click a tab and choose to mute the site.
• Silence notification sounds. Turn off sounds for a specific app in System Settings > Notifications, or turn on a Focus mode while you work.

The catch: not every app has a volume control, you have to hunt for it in each one, and there's no single place to see what's playing and how loud.

The closest match to the Windows mixer: SoundDial

SoundDial is a menu-bar app built for exactly this gap. Click its icon and you get a list of every running app, each with its own slider, much like the Windows Volume Mixer.

• Volume per app: set Chrome to 40%, Zoom to 100%, music to 20%
• Per-app mute: silence one app with one click while the others keep playing
• Boost above 100%: push a quiet app up to 200% without raising everything else
• Works per app, not per browser tab (all tabs of a browser share one slider)
• macOS 14.2 or later, €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription

The workflow is the one you already know from Windows: click the menu-bar icon instead of right-clicking the taskbar, then drag the slider next to the app you want to change. See per-app volume control on Mac for more.

Other options

SoundDial isn't the only tool in this space:

• SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba: a broader audio tool, $49, sold directly rather than on the Mac App Store. See our SoundSource alternative page.
• Background Music: a free, open-source app. See our Background Music alternative page.
• FineTune: a per-app audio project many people find through GitHub. See our FineTune alternative page.

For any of these, check the project or vendor website for current features, requirements and price. A wider overview is in the best volume mixer apps for Mac.

The bottom line

macOS won't give you a Volume Mixer out of the box, but you don't have to live with one system-wide slider. App-level controls cover some cases; a dedicated menu-bar mixer brings back the per-app sliders you had on Windows.

If you want per-app volume, mute and boost in one place, try SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac.

Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.