How to Mute One App on Mac Without Muting Everything Else

macOS has no built-in per-app mute control — the volume slider in System Settings applies to everything at once. To mute a single app without silencing your music, call, or anything else, you need either a workaround using the app itself, a browser trick, or a dedicated per-app audio tool.

Why doesn't Mac let you mute individual apps?

Windows has had a volume mixer since Vista — you can right-click the speaker icon and silence Chrome independently of Spotify. macOS has never shipped an equivalent. Apple's audio model routes all output through a single system volume level, with no native per-process control exposed in the UI.

This means if Chrome starts blasting an auto-playing ad while you're on a call, your only built-in options are:

• Mute the tab inside Chrome (if you can find it)
• Lower system volume and lose everything else
• Reach for your physical speaker knob

None of these are actually muting one app. Here's what actually works.

Method 1: Mute a browser tab directly (free, no installs)

If the noisy app is a browser, this is the fastest fix.

Chrome, Edge, Brave: Right-click any tab and choose Mute tab. The tab icon gains a speaker-with-a-line-through-it badge. You can also click the speaker icon that appears on the tab itself when audio is playing.

Safari: Right-click the tab → Mute Tab, or click the speaker icon in the Smart Search field on the right.

Firefox: Right-click the tab → Mute Tab.

This works well for browser audio, but it's per-tab, not per-app. If you have ten Chrome tabs playing audio, you're muting them one at a time. And it does nothing for native apps like Slack, Discord, Zoom, or Music.app.

Method 2: Use the app's own volume or mute control

Some apps expose their own mute:

• Spotify — click the speaker icon in the bottom-left of the player to mute
• Zoom — mute your mic is easy, but to mute incoming audio go to Zoom → Settings → Audio → Output Volume and drag it to zero
• Discord — right-click any user in a voice channel to adjust their volume, or use the Output Volume slider in Settings → Voice & Video
• Music.app — has its own volume slider in the player bar

The problem: this only works app-by-app if the developer chose to build in volume control. Slack doesn't have one. Neither do most productivity apps that occasionally make noise.

Method 3: Use a per-app audio control tool

For anything that doesn't have built-in mute — or if you want a single place to control all app volumes — a dedicated audio mixer is the proper solution.

Soundish adds a per-app volume mixer to your Mac menu bar. Every app currently producing audio shows up as its own row with an independent volume slider and a mute button. Clicking mute on Chrome silences it instantly; your Spotify keeps playing at full volume.

Beyond muting, Soundish lets you:

• Set volume between 0–200% per app (useful for quiet apps that never get loud enough)
• Route specific apps to different output devices — Spotify to speakers, Discord to headphones
• Save audio profiles and switch between them

It costs a one-time fee (no subscription), works on macOS 14.2 and later, and requires a quick driver install on first launch. The driver is what enables access to individual app audio streams — without it, macOS doesn't expose per-process control to third-party apps.

One thing worth knowing about how it handles browsers: Chrome, Brave, and Edge all run audio through background helper processes that have different names from the main app. Getting the mixer to label those streams correctly as "Chrome" rather than a generic process ID was one of the harder engineering problems to solve — but Soundish handles multi-process apps correctly.

Which method should you use?

| Situation | Best approach | |---|---| | Noisy browser tab | Mute the tab directly in the browser | | One specific app with its own volume | Use that app's built-in control | | Multiple apps, want one place to manage | Per-app mixer like Soundish | | Frequently switching audio setups | Soundish audio profiles |

If the noise is a one-off browser tab, tab muting is instant and free. If you regularly juggle audio from multiple apps — a common situation when working from home with music, video calls, and browser tabs all competing — a per-app mixer removes the friction entirely.

Does this work on all Macs?

Per-app audio tools that use Apple's Core Audio Tap API (introduced in macOS 14.2) require macOS Sonoma 14.2 or later. If you're on an older version, you're limited to browser tab muting and in-app volume controls — there's no equivalent API available on earlier macOS releases.

To check your version: Apple menu → About This Mac.

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Common questions

Can I mute Chrome without muting Safari or other apps?

Yes — but only with a per-app audio tool. macOS's native controls don't separate Chrome from other apps. A tool like Soundish shows Chrome as its own row in the mixer with an independent mute button, so silencing Chrome has no effect on anything else running.

Why does muting system volume affect everything instead of just one app?

macOS routes all audio through a single system output level by design. There's no native per-process volume layer exposed in the UI — unlike Windows, which has had a per-app mixer since Vista. The only way to get true per-app mute on macOS is through third-party software that hooks into Apple's Core Audio APIs.

Does muting a tab in Chrome actually stop the audio, or just the sound?

Muting a tab in Chrome stops audio playback from that tab reaching your speakers or headphones — the tab continues loading and playing internally, but no sound comes out. It's equivalent to muting that tab's audio stream, not pausing the video or page.