How to save and recall per-app volume setups on a Mac

macOS has no per-app volume mixer, so by default there is nothing to save — the system only stores one master output level, not a balance between your apps. To save a per-app volume setup and recall it later, you install a dedicated mixer that keeps its own state: it restores your levels after a restart, and the paid ones let you save several named setups — one for work, one for streaming, one for music — and switch between them in a click or a keystroke. This guide shows exactly what persists, what doesn't, and which tool fits the kind of recall you want.

There are two things people mean by "save my setup," and it's worth separating them up front. One is persistence: you spent five minutes getting Spotify, Zoom, and a browser balanced just right, and you want that mix to still be there tomorrow instead of rebuilding it every morning. The other is switching: you have a few recurring arrangements — a calls-all-day work mix, a streaming mix, a quiet-focus mix — and you want to jump between them without touching ten sliders. macOS gives you neither on its own. Here's how to get both.

Why there's nothing to "save" in macOS by default

The reason is structural, not a missing checkbox. macOS routes every app through a single master output. There's no system-level concept of "Spotify's volume" or "Zoom's volume" as separate, storable values, so there's nothing for the OS to remember between sessions. The Sound settings and the volume keys move that one shared level, and that's the whole model.

What you can lean on for free is each app's own internal slider. Spotify, VLC, and most web players remember the level you last set inside them, because that's their own preference, saved in their own settings. That helps for a single app — but it isn't a setup. It won't bring back a ten-app balance, it does nothing for apps that have no slider (system alerts, many games, notification-heavy Electron apps), and there's no single place that holds the arrangement. If you've ever found an app quiet again after a reboot, that's the same gap from the other side; our guide on app volume that keeps resetting on a Mac covers why.

Step one: make a single setup stick

Persistence is the easy win and the one most people actually want. A dedicated per-app mixer sits at the audio layer, gives every running app its own level, and — crucially — stores that state itself rather than relying on the OS. You set the balance once; the app writes it down.

The piece that makes it feel automatic is launch-at-login. When the mixer starts with your Mac, it brings back the channel map and levels you last used, so your setup is simply there when you sit down — no menu to open, no sliders to re-drag. That's the difference between a mix you rebuild daily and one you configure once. All three mixers below do this; the free option just can't go further than the one live setup.

Step two: save and switch multiple setups

The second kind of recall is where the tools diverge sharply. "A saved setup you can switch to" is a real feature, not a given, and only the paid apps have it. There are two names for essentially the same idea.

SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba calls them Quick Configs. You save a complete audio configuration and recall it from the menu-bar popover, which is genuinely useful when you change devices or move between locations — one click loads the whole arrangement back. It's the most literal "load my meeting setup" button in this category. Fader calls them profiles: you keep one profile for work, one for streaming, one for music, each a saved channel map, and swap the active one from the Console. The practical difference is where you reach the control and how fast, which we'll get to.

Background Music, the free open-source option, sets per-app volume live and remembers it between launches, but it has no saved-profile feature — there's no way to keep a work mix and a streaming mix side by side and flip between them. For a lot of people a single persistent mix is enough, and that's a fine reason to stay free. If you need named setups you can switch, that's where paid comes in.

All prices and requirements above are current as of October 2026. SoundSource 6 is a deep, polished tool; if a one-click saved config from the menu bar is exactly your workflow, Quick Configs does that well. The trade-offs to weigh honestly are the price ($49 versus $19.99) and that version 6 requires macOS 15 Sequoia, so on an older Mac you'd be on SoundSource 5.

Recall that's actually fast

Saving a setup is only half the value; the other half is how quickly you can get to it. A menu-bar config is: move to the menu bar, click the icon, open the popover, pick the config. That's fine for a change you make twice a day — moving from the office to home, say. It's slower than it needs to be for the changes you make constantly.

Fader's bet is that most "scene changes" during a day aren't wholesale — they're one app getting in the way. The call starts, so the music has to go. For that, loading a whole saved config is overkill; you want one key. Fader gives every channel its own global mute and volume hotkeys, so you ride the common changes from the keyboard without opening anything, and keep profiles for the genuine layout switches — a work profile, a streaming profile, a music profile — in the Console. If you want the full picture of building repeatable states this way, see one-keystroke audio scenes on Mac.

Be clear-eyed about the limit: no app gives you a single magic key that silently sets ten apps to ten different levels at once. Saved configs and profiles are a menu action or a Console switch; the per-keystroke part is the individual mute and volume keys. In practice that split matches how the day actually goes, which is why the keyboard-first approach tends to get used rather than forgotten.

Bottom line

macOS won't save a per-app volume setup because it has no per-app volume to begin with. For a single mix that survives restarts, any dedicated mixer — including the free, open-source Background Music — will do it by launching at login and restoring your levels. For several named setups you can switch between, you're looking at SoundSource's Quick Configs or Fader's profiles. If recall speed matters as much as the saving does, and you want to ride the everyday changes from the keyboard instead of a menu, that's the specific thing Fader is built for.