What is per-app volume control, and why doesn't macOS have it?

Per-app volume control is the ability to set a separate output level for each application on your Mac — Spotify at 30%, your call at 100%, a browser muted — instead of one master volume that moves everything at once. macOS has never shipped this. It mixes every app down to a single system output and gives you one slider for the lot, so getting per-app control means installing a third-party app that inserts itself into the audio path.

It's one of those features you don't think about until you need it, and then you need it constantly. A call comes in while music is playing. An alert blasts over a quiet podcast. A game is deafening but the voice chat is a whisper. On Windows, you'd open the Volume Mixer and drag one slider. On a Mac, there's no equivalent panel — and the reason why is more interesting than "Apple forgot."

What "per-app volume" actually means

Your Mac is almost always playing sound from more than one app at a time. A per-app volume control treats each of those streams as its own channel with its own level, the way a mixing desk treats each input. You set the balance once — music low, call loud, notifications somewhere in between — and the relationship holds even as you turn the whole thing up or down.

That's different from three things people often confuse it with:

• Master volume — the F-keys and the menu-bar slider. One level for everything.
• An app's own slider — Spotify, VLC, and most browsers have one, but it only covers that app, lives in a different place in each, and doesn't exist at all for many apps (games, system alerts, Electron apps).
• Audio routing — sending an app to a different output device, like music to AirPods and calls to a headset. Related, but that's where the sound goes, not how loud it is.

Why macOS doesn't have it

The short answer: macOS was built around a single system output, and Apple never exposed a public way to set an individual app's level. When apps play sound, the system's audio engine mixes them together and sends one combined stream to your selected output device. There's a master volume on that device and nothing finer. The operating system knows which app is making noise — you can see that in some places — but it offers no control surface, and no public interface, for turning one app down while the others stay put.

Windows made a different call. It has shipped a per-app Volume Mixer since Windows Vista in 2007, so switchers arrive expecting the same panel and find a blank space where it should be. This isn't a bug or a hidden setting — there's genuinely no native feature for it, on any version of macOS to date. If you want the longer version of the history, see why there's no Windows-style volume mixer on macOS.

How third-party apps add it

If the OS won't hand out per-app levels, software has to get into the audio path itself. There are two broad approaches, and the difference matters for how much setup you'll do.

The classic method is a virtual audio device. The app installs a software "output" that macOS treats like a real speaker. You set that virtual device as your system output, every app's audio flows through it, the tool adjusts each app's level on the way through, and then it passes the mixed result to your actual speakers or headphones. This is how Background Music works. It's powerful and free, but the virtual-device layer is also why these tools can need a more involved install — modern macOS tightened approval for the system components they rely on.

The newer method uses an audio-tap framework Apple added in macOS 14.4, which lets an app read and adjust audio per process without standing up a separate virtual output device for everything to pass through. That's the framework Fader is built on, which is why it requires macOS 14.4 or later. Either way, the point is the same: the per-app control macOS won't give you has to come from software that sits between your apps and your speakers.

The apps that do it, honestly compared

Several tools fill the gap macOS leaves. They all deliver per-app volume; they differ in price, in what else they do, and in how fast you can reach the controls. Here's an honest snapshot as of 2026.

Background Music is the free, open-source option and a genuinely good one — if you don't mind the install and don't need it to be fast. SoundSource is the deep, polished toolkit from Rogue Amoeba, with per-app EQ and effects well beyond volume, at $49. eqMac leads with equalization and adds volume on top. Which is "best" depends entirely on what you're actually trying to do.

Where Fader fits

Fader's angle isn't "we have per-app volume and they don't" — they do too. It's speed. The others put the controls in a menu-bar panel: move to the menu bar, click the icon, find the app's row, drag a slider, dismiss. That's fine once a day and tedious twenty times a day.

Fader turns your keyboard into the mixer. You hit a toggle hotkey and the letter keys become faders — one column of keys per app — so you ride levels or mute an app without leaving what you're doing or touching the mouse. It's $19.99 one-time (no subscription), with a 3-day free trial, and it runs on macOS 14.4 or later. If you adjust app volumes all day, that's the difference between owning a mixer and actually using one. For the full rundown of options, see how to control individual app volume on a Mac.

Bottom line

Per-app volume control means one level per app instead of one level for everything — and macOS simply doesn't ship it, because the system mixes all audio down to a single output with no public per-app control. To get it you install a tool that inserts itself into the audio path, either through a virtual device or the newer macOS 14.4 audio-tap framework. Background Music is the free route, SoundSource the deepest, and Fader the fastest to reach from the keyboard. Pick by how often you'll use it: the more you adjust, the more reaching the control in a keystroke is worth.