Discord Volume Too Loud or Quiet on Mac? How to Fix

Discord has two volume problems on Mac. Either it's too loud, with notification sounds blasting over your game and music, or it's too quiet and you can't hear teammates over the game. macOS doesn't let you set Discord's volume separately from other apps: everything shares one system slider.

Discord's built-in volume controls

Discord has several volume settings of its own. Check these first.

Output volume

Open Discord's Settings (the gear icon) and look for Output Volume under Voice & Video. It sets how loud Discord sounds to you. Too quiet: make sure it's at the top. Too loud: lower it here.

Limitation: this changes Discord's own level, which helps, but it can't make other apps quieter. If the game is the problem, you're back to the one system slider.

Per-user volume

Right-click someone in a voice channel and look for User Volume. This lets you turn one person up or down. Useful when one friend is much louder than the rest, but it doesn't fix Discord versus your other apps.

Notification sounds

In Discord's Settings, look under Notifications for the list of sounds (message, mute, deafen, join/leave and so on). You can turn individual sounds off. That cuts the number of disruptive sounds, but you can't make them quieter, only on or off.

The real problem: Discord versus everything else

Discord's controls adjust Discord. The real issue is how loud Discord is compared to your game, your music and your browser, and macOS gives you one slider for all of them.

To set Discord's level relative to the game, you need per-app volume control, which macOS doesn't provide natively.

Fix it with SoundDial

SoundDial gives Discord its own volume slider in the menu bar, independent from every other app. Set Discord to the level you want, or mute it, without touching your game, music or anything else. If teammates are still too quiet at 100%, you can boost Discord above 100%, up to 200%, without raising the game.

Common setups

Gaming with Discord:

• Discord: 100%, so you always hear teammates
• Game: 40%, immersive but not overpowering
• Spotify: 15%, quiet background music

Hanging out in voice chat:

• Discord: 80%
• Browser / YouTube: 60%
• Everything else: normal

Focus work (Discord in the background):

• Discord: muted or 10%
• Spotify: 50%
• Slack: 15%

Changing activity is a few drags of the sliders in one menu-bar panel, or save each setup as a profile and click its chip to apply it (profiles apply to apps that are running). The built-in Work, Focus and Chill profiles start empty until you update them with your own levels.

One thing to know: Discord counts as a call app. While it is using your microphone, SoundDial's auto-ducking (on by default) lowers other apps, your game and music included, to 30% of their level and restores them afterwards. If you'd rather keep your own levels in voice chat, raise the duck level or turn it off in Settings > Auto-Duck. That's per-app volume control for Discord. More about SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac.

SoundDial is a €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription, and needs macOS 14.2 or later. Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.