How to send one app to headphones while everything else plays on your speakers

The direct answer: macOS plays every app through whichever single output you pick in Sound settings, so there's no native switch to keep one app in your headphones while the rest plays out loud on your speakers. What you want is per-app output routing — point that one app at the headphones and leave the system default on the speakers. You can rig it for free if the app has its own output picker or with BlackHole, or set it as one rule in a routing app and forget about it.

It's a common setup: a game or a video in your headphones so it doesn't fill the room, while music, alerts, and everyone else's audio keeps coming out of the desk speakers. Or the opposite — a private call on the headset while a podcast plays on the speakers for the room. macOS treats all of that as one stream to one device, which is exactly why the Sound menu can't split it.

Why macOS won't split it for you

On a Mac there is one active output device at a time. The Sound settings pane and the volume keys move that single device — pick headphones and everything follows to the headphones; pick speakers and it all comes back. There's no column of per-app output menus the way Windows exposes app routing. Core Audio can address devices per app, but Apple never surfaced a control for it, so the split you want lives in third-party territory. This is the output-routing cousin of the volume problem covered in controlling individual app volume on a Mac.

The free path: the app's own output, or BlackHole

Start with the cheapest thing that might already work. A few apps carry their own audio-output setting — VLC, some DAWs and media tools, and games with an audio-device option in settings. If yours does, point it straight at your headphones and leave the system output on the speakers. Nothing to install, and it's an honest, complete fix for that one app.

Most apps — Spotify, Chrome, Slack, most games, anything Electron — have no output picker at all. For those, the free route is BlackHole, a free, open-source virtual audio device, combined with Audio MIDI Setup. You install BlackHole (a one-line Homebrew install or a signed installer), then build a Multi-Output or Aggregate device that combines a virtual device with your real hardware and steer the app through it. It works, and audio tinkerers rely on it.

The honest catch: it is genuinely setup-heavy for this particular goal. BlackHole is built to send audio between apps and to duplicate a stream across several outputs, not to hand you a simple "this app goes to headphones, everything else stays on speakers" switch. Getting exactly one app onto the headphones usually means the app needs its own output picker anyway, or a chain of aggregate devices you have to maintain. Great if you enjoy it; a lot of moving parts if you just want the split.

The gotcha worth knowing: Background Music is volume, not output

Background Music comes up constantly as the free per-app answer, and it's excellent at what it does — but it does volume, not per-app output. As of 2026 it keeps every app on the same system output device; assigning one app to a different output is a long-standing open feature request, not a shipping capability. So for "send Spotify to the speakers but this game to my headphones," Background Music can set the levels but can't do the actual routing. Worth knowing before you install it for the wrong job.

The set-it-once path: a per-app routing app

A routing app does at the OS level what these apps won't do themselves: it assigns each app an output device independent of the system default. You set the default output to your speakers, add a single rule — this app → headphones — and everything else keeps flowing to the speakers automatically. It persists across restarts and reconnects, so the app returns to your headphones whenever they're plugged in without you touching the Sound menu.

SoundSource from Rogue Amoeba is the deep option here: it sends individual apps to different outputs, adds effects and EQ, and version 6 added grouped output devices and AirPlay streaming. It's a one-time $49. Fader does the same per-app output routing in a clean list — set a device per app, and it sticks — for a one-time $19.99, and it also rides per-app volume from your keyboard in the same app. Here's how the options stack up for this exact headphones-versus-speakers split.

The exact setup: one app on headphones, the rest on speakers

With a per-app routing app the recipe is three steps and you're done:

1. Set the default system output to your speakers — that's where everything plays unless told otherwise. 2. Add one app route: pick the app (the game, the video, the call) and choose your headphones as its output. 3. Leave it. Every other app inherits the speakers; the one app you routed lands in your headphones and stays there across restarts.

In Fader that's the Routing tab: the default output sits at the top, and each app route is a row — App → Device — from a dropdown. Because the same app also gives every running app a fader on your keyboard, you can nudge that headphone app's level with letter keys at the same time, without hunting through the Sound menu. If you want the broader picture of per-app output on a Mac, including the DIY virtual-device approach, the companion guide on sending an app's audio to a different output on Mac goes deeper.

Bottom line

macOS points every app at one output, so a clean headphones-versus-speakers split isn't something the Sound menu can do. If your app happens to have its own output picker, use it — free and done. If you like tinkering, BlackHole plus Audio MIDI Setup is capable but fiddly for this specific goal, and Background Music won't do output routing at all. If you'd rather set one rule and move on — this app to headphones, everything else to the speakers — a per-app routing app is the straight path. SoundSource is the deep, $49 option; Fader does the routing plus keyboard-fast per-app volume for $19.99 one-time.