How to lower one app's volume without lowering everything on Mac

Here's why it happens and how to fix it: a Mac has only one master output level, so the volume keys move every app together — turn the music down and your call drops with it. To pull a single app down while everything else stays put, you either drag that app's own internal slider, or install a per-app mixer that gives each program its own fader. The quickest version lets you lower one app with a keystroke without touching the rest of your sound.

It's one of the most common Mac audio frustrations: a game is blasting, or a video starts too loud, and the only knob you have is the one that quiets everything. You hit the volume-down key to tame one thing and suddenly the podcast you were listening to is a whisper too. On Windows, you'd open the Volume Mixer and drag one slider. macOS never shipped that panel, so the obvious move isn't there.

Why the volume key lowers everything at once

macOS mixes all running apps down to a single output device and exposes exactly one control for it. The F11/F12 keys, the Control Center slider, and the Sound settings pane all move that same master level. There is no per-app stage in between, so the system literally has no concept of "Discord at 40%, Spotify at 80%." Everything is one number. That's the design — not a setting you've missed. If you want the full background on why Apple left this out and what the equivalents are, see does the Mac have a volume mixer like Windows.

Option 1 — Use the app's own volume slider (free)

The fastest free fix, when it's available, is to lower the loud app from inside the app itself instead of from the system. Plenty of programs carry their own level:

• Spotify and Apple Music have an in-app volume slider.
• YouTube, Netflix and other web players have a per-player volume control.
• VLC, IINA and most desktop video players have their own slider — VLC even goes past 100%.
• Browsers let you mute an individual tab without muting the rest of the browser.

If the app blasting at you is one of these, drag its slider down and leave the Mac's master volume where it is. Nothing else changes. This costs nothing and it's the right answer for a quick one-off.

The limit shows up fast. Every app hides its slider somewhere different, so you're hunting through windows each time. And a lot of audio has no slider at all — system alerts, notification sounds, many games, and Electron apps that just play through the OS. For those, there's nothing inside the app to turn down, which is exactly where people get stuck.

Option 2 — Give every app its own level with a mixer

A per-app mixer sits at the macOS audio layer and hands every running app its own fader in one place — the panel Apple never built. It's the only approach that works for apps without their own slider, and the only one that lets you set a mix once and keep it. The honest options:

Background Music is free and open source (GPLv2). It can set individual apps' volumes from a menu-bar list, and for a strictly free fix it's the first thing to try. It's a community project, so support and macOS-version compatibility depend on volunteer maintenance rather than a vendor. SoundSource from Rogue Amoeba is the deep, polished paid option — per-app volume plus EQ and routing — at a $49 one-time price. Fader does per-app volume and routing too, but is built around the keyboard, at $19.99 one-time with a 3-day trial. They all can lower one app; they differ in how fast you get to the control.

Which app are you actually trying to turn down?

The right move depends on whether the loud app has its own slider. A quick map:

If your problem app keeps landing in the "per-app mixer" column — and for most people the loud thing is a game, a chat app, or notifications — the app's own slider won't save you, and a mixer is the actual fix. For a fuller walkthrough of the per-app options, see how to control individual app volume on a Mac.

Why reaching the control fast matters

Every mixer in the table can lower an app. What you feel day to day is how many steps it takes. A menu-bar list means: go to the menu bar, click the icon, find the right row, drag it down, dismiss the panel. That's five actions for a volume change you make over and over — when a game spikes, when a call starts, when an ad gets loud.

Fader's whole idea is that the controller already under your hands is the fastest one. You tap a toggle hotkey, the keyboard turns into a mixer — one column of keys is one app, the next column is the next — and you ride a single app's level down with letter keys without leaving what you're doing. You can also bind a per-app mute key, so "drop the game" or "silence Slack" is one keystroke from inside any other window. For the app you're forever turning down, that's the difference between owning a mixer and actually using it.

Bottom line

The Mac gives you one master volume and nothing finer, which is why turning it down turns everything down. If the loud app has its own slider, use it — that's free and immediate. But the moment the culprit is a game, a chat app, or a system sound with no slider of its own, you need a per-app mixer to lower it in isolation. Background Music does it for free; SoundSource does it with depth; and if you want to pull one app down in a single keystroke without breaking your flow, that's exactly what Fader is built for.