The best EarTrumpet alternative for Mac

The best EarTrumpet alternative for Mac depends on what you want most. For a free menu-bar mixer, it's Background Music; add a system-wide equalizer and it's eqMac; for the deepest paid control it's SoundSource ($49); and for EarTrumpet's fast, keyboard-first feel it's Fader ($19.99 one-time). No macOS app is an exact clone, because EarTrumpet is Windows-only — but each of these covers a real slice of what it did.

EarTrumpet is one of those small Windows utilities people fall in love with: a system-tray panel with a volume slider for every running app, quick output-device switching, and hotkeys. Then you switch to a Mac, reach for it, and it isn't there. It never will be — EarTrumpet is a free, open-source Windows app with no macOS build. macOS also has no built-in equivalent: the system volume keys move one master level for everything at once. So the honest question isn't "where's EarTrumpet for Mac," it's "which Mac app replaces the parts of EarTrumpet I actually used." That's what this guide ranks.

What you're actually trying to replace

EarTrumpet did three jobs, and no single Mac app copies all three the same way. Before you pick, decide which of these matters to you:

• Per-app volume. A separate slider for each app, so Spotify can sit at 30% while a call stays at 100%. This is the core job, and every app below does it.
• Quick output switching. Sending one app — or the whole system — to a different device without diving into System Settings.
• Speed. EarTrumpet lives a click or a hotkey away. If the replacement is slow to reach, you stop using it, and a mixer you don't reach for is no better than the master volume key.

Rank those three for yourself and the right pick falls out of the table below.

The EarTrumpet alternatives for Mac, compared

Four apps genuinely stand in for EarTrumpet on a Mac. (You'll also see BlackHole recommended — it's a great tool, but it's a virtual audio driver with no mixer of its own, so it's not really an EarTrumpet replacement. More on that below.) Here's the honest layout:

Prices verified in August 2026: SoundSource 6 is $49 for new buyers direct from Rogue Amoeba; Background Music and eqMac are free and open source; Fader is a $19.99 one-time Mac App Store purchase with a 3-day free trial.

The best free alternative: Background Music

If "free, and the closest thing to EarTrumpet's per-app sliders" is what you're after, Background Music is it. It's an open-source app that installs a virtual audio device and shows a menu-bar list with a volume slider for every app making sound. That's the EarTrumpet muscle memory — open the menu, drag the app you want. It also auto-pauses your music when other audio starts, which is a nice bonus EarTrumpet never had.

Where it stops: it routes everything through one system output, so it doesn't send individual apps to different devices, and it isn't driven from the keyboard. It's also a community project, so updates come at their own pace. For a lot of people that's a fine trade for $0.

If you also want an equalizer: eqMac

eqMac is the other free, open-source option, and it's the pick if you missed EarTrumpet and want a system-wide equalizer. It pairs a parametric EQ with a per-app volume mixer, so you can shape your Mac's overall sound and still ride individual app levels from the menu bar. Like Background Music, it works through a system audio driver and isn't built around global hotkeys — the interaction is menu-and-mouse, not keyboard.

The deepest paid option: SoundSource

SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba is the most powerful app in this list, and the most expensive at $49 one-time. It gives you per-app volume, per-app output routing (the thing the free apps can't do), real-time effects, and a solid equalizer, all from a menu-bar panel. If EarTrumpet was your entry point but you actually want a full Mac audio control center — routing, EQ, effects, headphone tuning — SoundSource earns its price. It supports keyboard adjustments too, though the app is designed around its menu-bar window rather than a keyboard-first mixer.

The closest to EarTrumpet's speed: Fader

The one thing EarTrumpet fans miss most isn't a feature on a checklist — it's how fast it was. A keystroke or a single click and you're adjusting. That's the gap Fader is built for. You hit a toggle hotkey and the keyboard becomes a mixer: the Q/A/Z column rides one app, W/S/X the next, and you can bind a mute key per app so silencing the browser is one keystroke from inside any other window. It also does per-app output routing, so an app can go to your headset while everything else stays on the speakers.

Fader doesn't include an equalizer — if EQ is a must, eqMac (free) or SoundSource (paid) is the better fit. But if what you loved about EarTrumpet was reaching your mix in a fraction of a second, Fader is the closest match on the Mac, at $19.99 one-time with a 3-day free trial, on macOS 14.4 or later. There's a fuller walkthrough in our guide to setting up the closest EarTrumpet equivalent on a Mac.

A note on BlackHole (and why it's not on the list)

BlackHole comes up in every "Mac audio" thread, and it's excellent at what it does — it's a free virtual audio cable for passing sound between apps. But it has no interface, no per-app sliders, and no volume controls of its own; you build routing setups around it in the Audio MIDI Setup app. That makes it a routing building block, not an EarTrumpet stand-in. If your goal is per-app volume with a panel you can actually poke at, one of the four above is the answer.

How to pick in one line

Want it free? Background Music, or eqMac if you also want EQ. Want the deepest control and don't mind paying? SoundSource. Want EarTrumpet's speed — a mix you reach without touching the mouse? Fader. If you're weighing the paid options specifically, our SoundSource alternatives breakdown goes deeper on the trade-offs.

Bottom line

There's no EarTrumpet for Mac and there won't be, but the job it did is well covered. Background Music and eqMac replace the per-app sliders for free, SoundSource replaces the whole thing with more depth for $49, and Fader replaces the part people miss most — the speed — for $19.99 one-time. Start with the free apps if budget is the deciding factor; reach for Fader if you'd rather never touch the mouse to fix your mix.