How to Boost Mac Volume Beyond 100%

Your Mac volume is at 100%. The slider is all the way to the right, and it's still not loud enough. The podcast is too quiet. The person on the video call sounds like they're whispering. The YouTube video was recorded too low.

This is a common complaint on Mac, especially with the small built-in speakers on MacBook Air and older MacBook Pro models, and with content that was simply recorded at a low level.

Here's why it happens and how to fix it, including how to boost one app beyond the 100% limit.

Why your Mac sounds too quiet at full volume

1. The content itself is quiet

Not all audio is mastered at the same level. A professionally produced podcast is much louder than a casual YouTube video or a recorded call. At 100% system volume, quiet content stays quiet: the system slider can't make a recording louder than it was made.

2. MacBook speakers have physical limits

Laptop speakers are small and built for portability. Larger MacBook Pro models sound fuller, but every built-in speaker has a ceiling. If you're used to external speakers or headphones, they'll feel weak.

3. Headphone volume is capped

Bluetooth headphones and speakers can have their own volume level, separate from macOS. And the Headphone Safety setting can cap headphone output (see below).

4. The app's own volume is low

Many apps have a volume control separate from the system volume. If a music player's in-app volume is at 50% and the system is at 100%, you're effectively listening at 50%.

Built-in fixes to try first

Check Headphone Safety

Go to System Settings > Sound > Headphone Safety. If "Reduce Loud Audio" is on, macOS limits your headphone volume. Turn it off or raise the threshold. This only affects headphones, not the speakers.

Check the Bluetooth device's volume

Some Bluetooth devices have their own volume buttons or a companion app. Make sure both the Mac and the device are at maximum.

Check the in-app volume

Open the app that's too quiet and look for its own volume slider: in the player bar of a music app, in the playback controls of a video player, on the YouTube player. Make sure it's at 100% before blaming your Mac.

Restart Core Audio

The macOS audio service can get into a bad state after sleep or device changes. Open Terminal and run:

sudo killall coreaudiod

Audio cuts out for a second and comes back, sometimes at a more normal level.

How to boost volume beyond 100%

If you've checked everything above and your Mac is still too quiet, you need to amplify the audio above the 100% ceiling macOS gives you.

A volume boost raises the level of the audio before it reaches your speakers or headphones. At 150% the signal is one and a half times as loud as the original; at 200% it's doubled. At high levels, loud content can clip and distort (SoundDial has no limiter, so raise the slider in small steps), but for quiet audio it's the way to make it actually audible.

SoundDial: boost one app up to 200%

SoundDial gives every running app its own volume slider from 0% to 200%, in your menu bar. If one app is too quiet, a podcast player, a browser, a video call, you can boost that one app above 100% without touching anything else.

This helps most with:

• Quiet podcasts, especially ones recorded in poor conditions
• Video calls with a quiet participant: boost Zoom or Teams without making your music louder
• Browsers: web video and embedded media often play quieter than dedicated media apps (SoundDial works per app, so all tabs of one browser share one slider)
• Old recordings mastered at lower levels

The advantage over boosting the whole system is that you choose which app gets louder. Boost the quiet app to 180% while everything else stays at its normal level, instead of making already-loud apps painfully loud.

When hardware is the better answer

Software boosting has limits. If you're trying to fill a room from a MacBook Air's built-in speakers, no app can overcome the size of those speakers. In that case:

• Wired headphones sidestep the speakers entirely
• External speakers, even inexpensive USB or Bluetooth ones, play louder than built-in laptop speakers
• A USB audio interface gives a clean, strong signal to studio monitors or headphones

For the everyday case, a quiet browser video, a mumbling caller, a podcast recorded in a closet, a per-app boost is the fastest fix: click the menu bar icon and drag the slider past 100%.

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

Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.