Per-app EQ means giving each app its own tone curve — boosting bass on music while flattening a harsh video call, all at once — instead of one equalizer for your whole Mac. macOS ships no system equalizer at all, let alone a per-app one, so this is strictly a third-party job. In 2026 the tool that genuinely does it is SoundSource, which inserts a 10-band EQ and audio effects on each app separately for a one-time $49. eqMac gives you a free equalizer, but it's system-wide — one curve for everything. And if you dig into why you wanted EQ, the honest answer is often that you just want per-app volume, which is a cheaper, faster problem to solve.
"Per-app EQ" gets searched by people who've hit a specific wall: one app sounds wrong, and turning up the volume doesn't fix it. A podcast is too bright and sibilant. A meeting app is boxy and fatiguing over a long call. Music from your laptop speakers has no low end. You want to fix that app without dragging the rest of your audio along with it. On Windows and on phones there's usually a built-in EQ somewhere. On a Mac, there isn't — and the gap is bigger than most people expect.
What "per-app EQ" actually means
An equalizer shapes the balance of frequencies in a sound — how much bass, how much midrange, how much treble. A system-wide EQ applies one curve to everything your Mac plays: bump the bass and your music, your calls, and your notification chimes all get more bass. A per-app EQ applies a different curve to each app: your music gets warmer, your call app gets a de-essing tweak to cut sibilance, and your browser is left flat. Same idea as EQ everywhere else — the "per-app" part is that the tool inserts the effect into each app's audio stream independently before it mixes down to your speakers.
That's the crucial distinction to hold onto while shopping. Plenty of Mac apps advertise "an equalizer." Far fewer apply it per app. If you only ever want to warm up your headphones across the board, a global EQ is all you need. If you want music, calls, and video each shaped differently, you need a tool that works at the per-application layer.
Why macOS has no EQ, per-app or otherwise
Apple never shipped a user-facing equalizer for system audio. The closest built-in things are the EQ presets inside Apple Music and the Podcasts app, and each of those only touches its own playback — they're app features, not an OS feature. There's no panel in System Settings to shape your Mac's overall sound, and nothing that lets you set different tone for different apps.
The reason is the same one behind macOS having no per-app volume mixer: the system mixes every app down to a single output stream and doesn't expose per-app hooks for third parties to sit in the middle of. So any app that wants to EQ or re-level individual apps has to insert itself into the audio path — historically with a virtual audio driver, and more recently through the modern audio-capture APIs Apple added. That's why every option below is a separate download, and why "just turn on the Mac's EQ" isn't a thing you can do.
The apps that actually do per-app EQ on Mac
Here's the honest landscape in 2026. The dividing line isn't "has an equalizer" — it's whether that equalizer can be set differently for each app.
| App | EQ scope | Per-app volume | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoundSource | Per-app EQ (10-band) + Audio Units per app | Yes | $49 one-time |
| eqMac | System-wide EQ (one curve for all) | Yes — Pro feature | Free EQ; Pro ~$3/mo or ~$40 lifetime |
| Fader | No EQ | Yes — core feature | $19.99 one-time |
| macOS built-in | None (only in-app presets) | No | Free |
SoundSource (Rogue Amoeba) is the real answer to "per-app EQ on Mac." Every app you control gets a built-in 10-band equalizer and a volume-overdrive stage added to its stream, and you can drop in Audio Unit plug-ins on top — all on a per-application basis. Version 6 is a current, actively developed release, and it's a one-time $49 license (existing owners upgrade for $25) with a free, limited trial. If shaping the tone of individual apps is genuinely your goal, this is the tool to buy. It also handles per-app volume and output routing, so it's a broad audio utility, not just an EQ.
eqMac is excellent and free, but read the fine print for this use case: its equalizer is system-wide. You get a basic and a 10-band advanced EQ, plus AutoEQ headphone-correction profiles, all for nothing — a great deal if you want one good curve across your whole Mac. What eqMac's free tier does not give you is a separate EQ per app. Its per-app feature is the Volume Mixer, and that lives in the paid Pro plan (roughly $3/month or about $40 for a lifetime license). So eqMac is the right pick for free global EQ, not for per-app tone. We break the two apart in eqMac vs Fader if you're weighing them directly.
Fader — this site's app — is worth being straight about: it has no equalizer. It's a keyboard-driven per-app volume mixer and audio router, not a sound processor. It won't add bass or cut sibilance. It's a one-time $19.99 with a 3-day trial, and it needs macOS 14.4 or later. So if you truly need EQ, Fader isn't your tool, and SoundSource is the one to look at. The reason Fader still belongs in this conversation is the next section.
Do you actually need EQ, or do you need per-app volume?
A lot of "I need a per-app equalizer" turns out, on inspection, to be "I need one app to be quieter than another." EQ changes how something sounds; volume changes how loud it is relative to the rest. They feel similar when one app is stepping on the others, but they're different fixes:
| The complaint | Usually an EQ job | Usually a volume job |
|---|---|---|
| Podcast sounds harsh / sibilant | Yes — de-ess with EQ | No |
| Laptop speakers sound thin | Yes — bass boost | No |
| Call drowns out my music | No | Yes — lower the call or raise the music |
| One app is way too loud | No | Yes — cap that app's level |
| Notifications blast over everything | No | Yes — turn alerts down |
If your row lands in the volume column, an equalizer is the long way around. You don't need to reshape anyone's frequency curve — you need each app to sit at its own level. That's exactly what a per-app volume mixer does, and it's a smaller, cheaper, faster tool than a full audio processor. For the full rundown of those options, see how to control individual app volume on a Mac.
Where Fader fits — and where it doesn't
Fader is built for the volume half of that table, and it's built for speed. You hit a toggle hotkey and the keyboard becomes a mixer — one column of letter keys per app — so dropping the call, raising the music, or muting the browser is a keystroke instead of a hunt through a menu-bar panel. It also routes any app to its own output device without virtual cables. What it deliberately does not do is EQ. If you want to change the tone of an app, reach for SoundSource. If you want to change how loud each app is and where it plays, quickly and for a one-time $19.99, that's Fader's lane.
Bottom line
Per-app EQ on a Mac isn't a system setting — macOS has no equalizer to turn on. To give each app its own tone curve, SoundSource is the tool that genuinely does it, per app, for a one-time $49. eqMac is the free choice if you're happy with one system-wide curve, and its per-app feature is volume, not EQ. Before you buy an equalizer at all, check whether your problem is really loudness in disguise — if it is, a per-app volume mixer like Fader solves it faster and cheaper. Buy SoundSource to change how your apps sound. Buy Fader to change how loud they are and where they play.
Balance every app from your keyboard
Fader turns letter keys into per-app faders and routes any app to its own output. No EQ — just fast, pay-once level control. $19.99 one-time, 3-day free trial, no account. macOS 14.4+.