Mac Audio Setup for Online Classes and Lectures

You're in an online lecture on Zoom. A YouTube tutorial is open in another tab for reference. Classmates are chatting on Discord. Spotify plays lo-fi in the background. Your Mac treats all of it as one volume. Turn down the music and you can't hear your professor. Turn up the lecture and every Discord ping hits harder.

macOS has one volume slider for everything. For students juggling several audio sources, that's a constant friction point.

The typical student audio stack

• Lecture platform (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Webex): needs to be clear and always audible
• Reference material (YouTube tutorials, recorded lectures): moderate volume, easy to pause
• Study music (Spotify, Apple Music): low background level that doesn't compete with the lecture
• Chat (Discord, Messages, Slack): subtle notification sounds, not disruptive
• Browser tabs: the occasional auto-playing video that needs silencing right away

Start with what macOS and your apps already offer

Turn down notification sounds

Go to System Settings > Notifications, pick each chat app and turn off its notification sound, or turn notifications off during class. Many chat apps also have their own notification sound options in their settings, so look there too.

Use a Focus mode during lectures

A Focus mode (Do Not Disturb or a custom 'Study' Focus) can silence notifications from the apps you choose while the lecture runs. It doesn't touch media or call audio, only notifications.

Use each app's own volume control

Music apps usually have a volume slider in the player, and video players in the browser have one too. Lowering Spotify's own slider and leaving the system volume high is the quickest way to keep music under a lecture.

The catch: not every app has its own slider, they're scattered across different windows, and a call app often has no simple playback volume at all. If the professor's mic is quiet, you can't push the lecture any louder than 100%.

Per-app volume for studying

SoundDial sits in your menu bar and gives each running app its own slider from 0% to 200%, plus a one-click mute. Here are a few setups that work well. You can set them with the sliders when you switch tasks, or save each one as a profile and click it to apply it to the apps that are running.

During a live class, auto-ducking (on by default) lowers your other apps to 30% of their level while Zoom, Teams, Meet in Chrome or another call app uses the microphone, and restores them afterwards. You can change the level or turn it off in SoundDial's settings.

During a lecture

• Zoom / Teams / Meet: 100%, or higher if the professor's mic is quiet (up to 200%)
• Spotify: 15%, barely-there background
• Discord: 10%, subtle notifications only
• Browser: 40%, for reference videos when needed
• Messages: muted, check between classes

Self-study

• Spotify: 50%, motivating study music
• Browser: 70%, tutorial videos at a clear level
• Discord: 20%, available for your study group
• Everything else: muted

Break

• Everything: 60-80%, relax between classes

Note that SoundDial works per app, not per browser tab: all tabs in one browser share a slider. If the lecture runs in a browser tab and a noisy tab plays in the same browser, pause or mute that tab in the browser itself. More tips in controlling browser tab volume on Mac.

Why it helps your focus

The wrong mix (music too loud, notifications too frequent, lecture too quiet) pulls attention away from the material. Getting each app to a sensible level, and boosting a quiet lecture instead of turning up everything, removes a constant small distraction. If chat pings are the main problem, see muting Slack notifications without muting everything.

Get SoundDial

SoundDial, a per-app volume mixer for Mac gives you per-app volume control from the menu bar. It needs macOS 14.2 or later and costs €14.99 one-time purchase on the Mac App Store, no subscription.

Get SoundDial on the Mac App Store.