How to Mute an App on Mac Without Muting Everything

You're on a Zoom call. Slack keeps making notification sounds. A YouTube tab you forgot about starts playing. You hit the mute key, and now you can't hear your call either. macOS mutes everything. There's no built-in way to mute just one app.

On Windows you can open the volume mixer and mute a single app. macOS has no equivalent. This guide covers what you can do with built-in settings, and how to get a real mute button per app.

Why macOS can't mute individual apps

macOS mixes every app's audio together, and the only volume control Apple gives you works on that final mix. The mute key and the volume slider affect all apps at once.

Built-in workarounds (and their limits)

1. Turn off notification sounds for the app

Go to System Settings > Notifications, select the app and turn off Play sound for notification, or turn its notifications off entirely.

The catch: this only covers notification sounds. Media playback, call audio and other in-app sounds keep playing.

2. Use a Focus mode

Focus modes (Do Not Disturb, Work, Personal and others) can silence notifications from apps you choose.

The catch: Focus is about notifications, not audio. It won't silence a Slack huddle, a browser tab or any media playback, and it needs setting up in advance.

3. Quit the app

If you quit the app, it can't make sounds.

The catch: you can't see anything from it either. You want to keep using the app without hearing it.

4. Use the app's own settings

Some apps have their own sound or mute option. In Slack, look for notification sound options in its settings; in a music app, there's usually a speaker icon in the player.

The catch: every app does it differently, many apps have no such option, and switching back means digging through settings again.

A mute button for each app

What you actually want is a mute button next to each app: click to silence it, click again to hear it, with the app still running and everything else still playing.

That's what a per-app volume mixer does. SoundDial sits in your menu bar and shows every running app with its own slider and mute button. More on this: mute one app on Mac.

To mute one app:

1. Click the SoundDial icon in your menu bar
2. Find the app you want to mute
3. Click the mute button next to it

The app is muted. Everything else keeps playing at its current level. Click the button again to unmute; the slider comes back at the exact level it had before.

Beyond muting: a level for each app

Most of the time you don't want to silence an app completely, just make it quieter:

• Slack notifications at 15%: easy to notice, not distracting
• Music at 30%: background level that doesn't compete with a conversation
• Browser at 60%: comfortable for videos
• Zoom at 100%: full volume for the call that matters

SoundDial gives each app a slider from 0% to 200%, so you can also boost a quiet app above 100% without making the rest louder. It works per app, not per browser tab.

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.