How to set a different volume for each app on a Mac

The short answer

macOS has no built-in per-app volume. There’s one system volume (the slider in Control Center, or the volume keys), and every app plays at that level. To set Zoom to 130% and Spotify to 40%, you need a third-party mixer app.

Before installing one, check whether the app has its own control. Many do.

Built-in workarounds

• In-app volume: Spotify, Music, Zoom, Teams, Slack huddles, Discord and most browsers’ video players have their own slider. Set the system volume high and turn the loud app down inside it.
• Mute a browser tab: in Safari, click the speaker icon in the tab or the address bar. In Chrome, right-click the tab › Mute site.
• Fine steps on the keyboard: hold Option + Shift while pressing a volume key to change it in quarter steps. Handy when the jump from 2 to 3 bars is too much.
• Separate outputs: Music on the Mac speakers, calls on headphones. Many call apps let you pick a speaker in their own audio settings, independent of the system default.
• Alert volume: System Settings › Sound › Alert volume sets notification and beep loudness separately from everything else.

None of these give you one place to balance every app, and they don’t remember anything across launches.

How per-app volume apps work

There are two approaches, and they behave differently:

Approach	How it works	Trade-offs
Virtual audio driver	Installs a fake output device; all audio goes through it, the app sets each stream’s level	A driver to install and keep updated; can break with macOS updates; adds latency
Core Audio process taps (macOS 14.2+)	Taps a single app’s audio, mutes the original and replays it at the new level	Needs System Audio Recording permission; nothing installed; only active for apps you changed

Process taps are the newer, cleaner path: Apple added them in macOS 14.2 so apps no longer need a kernel or HAL driver. The cost is a permission prompt and the purple recording indicator in the menu bar while a tap runs. That indicator is macOS telling you the truth, not a sign anything is recording to disk.

The options

• SoundSource (Rogue Amoeba, paid): the long-standing, polished choice, with per-app volume, effects and EQ per app, and per-app output routing.
• Background Music (free, open source): an older driver-based mixer. Works for many people, but updates are infrequent, so check it supports your macOS version.
• FineTune (free, open source): a newer menu bar mixer built on process taps, for macOS 15 and later.
• Stat Space (free): per-app volume as one tab of a system monitor; see below.

For a fuller comparison with pros and cons, see the per-app volume apps roundup.

If the sound goes strange

Per-app audio runs through coreaudiod, the macOS audio server. If audio crackles, cuts out or an app goes silent after you change devices, reset each changed app to 100% first. If that doesn’t help, restarting the audio server fixes most glitches:

sudo killall coreaudiod

It restarts on its own within a second. More on what it does: coreaudiod.

Doing this with Stat Space

Stat Space has a Volume tab that lists every app playing sound, with its icon, a 0–150 % slider that snaps to 100 %, mute and a live level meter. Volumes are remembered per app across launches, and you can set one before the app even plays. Right-click an app to mute all but it, or play it through another output device. The tab also has the output and input device pickers, master volume and balance, and a “Mic in use by …” banner.

It uses Core Audio process taps, so it needs macOS 14.2 or later. The System Audio Recording permission is asked only when you first move a slider, never just for opening the tab. A tap only runs for an app you changed, while it plays. It’s free. It doesn’t do per-app EQ or effects; for that, SoundSource is the better tool.