How to control Microsoft Teams call volume on a Mac

Microsoft Teams has no volume of its own on a Mac. Its in-call Speaker slider controls your system output device, so turning the call down turns your whole Mac down with it — and new Teams tends to snap each call back to full volume. The only way to hold Teams at, say, 60% while your music stays up is a per-app mixer that gives Teams its own fader at the audio layer. This guide covers the free in-call fix, where it stops working, and the keyboard-fast way to pin Teams for good.

It's a specific kind of annoying. You're in a Teams call, someone's mic is hot, and it's blasting. You reach for the volume keys — and now the person talking is quieter, but so is everything else, and the moment the next call starts Teams is loud again. macOS gives you one master output, and Teams rides on top of it like every other app. There's no native "Teams at 60%, music at 100%."

Why turning Teams down turns your whole Mac down

On macOS, the system volume is a single master level for your output device. Teams doesn't run a separate, private volume — its Speaker slider is a remote control for that same system output. So when you drag it, you're dragging the master. Your music, your browser, your notification sounds: all of them move together. This is the same reason Zoom's volume can't truly stand on its own either. It isn't a Teams bug so much as a gap in macOS itself.

Teams makes it feel worse in two ways. First, many users on recent "new Teams" builds report that answering or starting a call resets the volume to maximum, undoing whatever you'd set. Second, the Mac volume keys don't reliably move the Teams call output at all in some setups — so the one control you'd instinctively reach for either does nothing useful or nukes your whole system. Either way, you're left babysitting the level by hand.

The free in-call fix (works, but doesn't stick)

Teams does expose a per-call speaker level. During a meeting:

Click More (the three dots in the call bar) → Settings or Device settings → drag the slider under Speaker. That lowers the call output for that session without you touching the system keys.

It's genuinely useful in the moment. The catch is that it's a per-call chore, not a setting. The level is still tied to your system output, it can reset when the next call begins, and you have to dig two menus deep mid-conversation to reach it. For one occasional loud caller, fine. For someone who lives in back-to-back Teams calls, it's friction you'll feel every hour.

The Audio MIDI Setup workaround (free, fiddly)

The classic macOS answer is to build an Aggregate Device in Audio MIDI Setup (Applications → Utilities) and point Teams at it, then manage levels there. It can work, but it's a lot of plumbing for a volume knob: you're creating virtual devices, matching sample rates, and re-selecting outputs whenever your hardware changes. It also doesn't give you a fast, per-app slider you can grab in a second — which is the whole point when a call is already too loud.

The real fix: give Teams its own fader

A per-app volume mixer sits below the apps, at the OS audio layer, and hands every running app its own independent level — the thing macOS never shipped. That means Teams gets a real fader you can set once: keep it at 70%, drop it to a whisper, or mute it, all without moving your music or your system keys. Tools in this space include Background Music (free, open source), SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba (paid, deep, with per-app EQ), and Fader (paid, keyboard-first).

They all achieve per-app volume. Where they differ is how fast you can reach the control — and on a call, when a voice is suddenly too loud, "fast" is the entire game.

Why the keyboard wins on a call

Picture the moment: you're on camera, someone's audio spikes, and you need it down now. A menu-bar mixer means moving to the menu bar, clicking the icon, finding the Teams row, dragging the slider, and dismissing the panel — five actions while you're trying to look like you're listening. Teams' own menu is deeper still.

Fader's bet is that the fastest controller you own is already under your hands. You tap a toggle hotkey, the keyboard becomes a mixer, and one column of keys is Teams — press to ride it down, press to mute, without leaving the call or touching your mouse. You set Teams to sit under your music once, and when a caller gets loud you tame it in a single keystroke. That's the difference between owning a mixer and actually using it in the seconds that matter.

Keeping calls balanced against music and alerts

The deeper win isn't just lowering Teams — it's setting a mix and keeping it. Teams at a comfortable 65%, focus music underneath, notification sounds quiet enough not to startle you mid-sentence. With a per-app mixer those are independent faders you set once and recall, instead of a single master everything fights over. If your day is calls plus background audio, the same idea is worth reading in how to make a call quieter than your music on a Mac — the mechanics are identical whether the call app is Teams or Zoom.

Bottom line

Teams can't hold its own volume on a Mac because it doesn't have one — its slider moves your whole system output, and new Teams likes to reset calls to full blast. The in-call Speaker slider is a fine free patch for the occasional loud caller. But if you're on Teams all day and you want it pinned below your music and mutable in an instant, you need a per-app mixer. If reaching that control in one keystroke is what you care about, that's exactly what Fader is built for.