How to control the Apple TV or Music app volume per app on Mac

The Apple TV and Music apps each have an in-player volume slider, but both ride on top of your Mac's one master output — so you can't hold a movie quieter than a call, or set the Music app to 40% while everything else stays at 100%. macOS ships no per-app volume mixer. To give the Apple TV or Music app its own fixed level, you either juggle each slider by hand, or install a dedicated mixer that adds the system-wide control Apple left out — and lets you ride it from the keyboard.

It's a common frustration: you're watching something in the Apple TV app, a Slack call comes in, and there's no way to pin the movie a notch below the call. Drag the Apple TV slider down and the moment it disappears you've lost the control; reach for the volume keys and everything drops together. The Music app behaves the same way. Neither app is broken — they're both playing by the one rule macOS gives every app: there is a single shared output, and nothing finer.

What the Apple TV app's volume slider actually does

The Apple TV app does have a volume control, but it's easy to miss and limited by design. During playback, move the pointer over the video and the playback controls appear, including a volume slider you drag up or down (drag it all the way down and subtitles switch on while audio is muted). It's a genuine level for that title — but it only exists while a video is playing, it lives inside the player window, and it sits on top of your master output. Turn your Mac's system volume down and the Apple TV app goes down with it.

So the slider is fine for "this movie is a bit loud." It can't do "keep this movie steady while I turn everything else up," and it can't touch the app at all when it's paused or minimized. The instant you need to balance the Apple TV app against another app, the built-in control runs out.

The Music app has the same limit

Apple's Music app carries a volume slider in its playback bar, and it feels independent — but it rides on your system output exactly like the Apple TV app. Push the master down and Music can't beat it; the volume keys still move it. There's no native way to say "Music at 30%, calls at full." If the Music app is your specific case, we go deep on it in how to set Apple Music's volume independently on Mac. The short answer is the same one this guide reaches: the built-in slider is a level on top of the master, not a per-app volume.

Option 1 — Balance the sliders by hand (free)

The no-cost route is to leave your Mac's master output high and pull down only the app you want quieter, using its own control — the Apple TV player slider, the Music playback slider. Set the loud app low, leave the rest alone, and you have a rough mix that costs nothing.

The catch is that it's manual and it slips. The Apple TV slider vanishes when the controls fade, so you re-summon it every time; the two apps put their sliders in different places; and anything without a slider of its own (system alerts, many games) can't join the mix at all. For a single quick adjustment it's fine. Across a session of watching, listening, and calls, you're constantly re-hunting the same controls — which is the exact friction a per-app mixer removes.

Option 2 — A per-app volume mixer (the real fix)

A dedicated mixer sits at the macOS audio layer and gives every running app its own level in one place — the thing Apple never shipped. That's the only approach that lets you set the Apple TV app (or Music) to a fixed level and have it hold against everything else, whether or not the player controls are on screen. Tools in this space include Background Music (free, open source), SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba (paid, deep on EQ and routing), and Fader (paid, keyboard-first).

They all set a per-app level. Where they differ is how fast you can reach the control — and for something you nudge constantly, like a movie against an incoming call, that's the difference between a mixer you actually use and one you forget is installed.

Why reaching it fast matters for video and music

Every mixer above can pin the Apple TV app to a level. What you feel day to day is how long it takes to change it. A menu-bar list means move to the menu bar, click the icon, find the Apple TV row, drag the bar, dismiss — five actions for a volume change you make mid-scene, one-handed, without wanting to pause.

Fader's bet is that the fastest controller you own is the keyboard already under your hands. You hit a toggle hotkey, the keyboard becomes a mixer — one letter column is the Apple TV app, the next is Music, the next is your call — and you ride levels with letter keys without leaving the movie. Duck the film the instant a call connects, bring it back when the call ends, all without touching the mouse or losing your place.

How to mute the Apple TV or Music app instantly

Sometimes you don't want quieter, you want silent — right now, without pausing. The Apple TV slider can be dragged to zero, but only while the controls are up, and the Mac's mute key silences the whole system. In a per-app mixer you assign a mute key per app, so "silence the Apple TV app" or "silence Music" is one keystroke from inside any other window. For the general pattern, see how to lower one app's volume without lowering everything on Mac.

Bottom line

The Apple TV and Music apps both give you an in-player slider, but it's a level on top of one shared output, not a real per-app volume — it hides when playback stops and it can't be balanced against your other apps. For a one-off "turn this down," the built-in slider is free and enough. For a fixed level that holds against calls, music, and alerts — and that you can ride from the keyboard without pausing what you're watching — a dedicated per-app mixer is the fix. If reaching the control fast is what you care about, that's exactly what Fader is built for.