FreeAudio
A free menu bar volume mixer for macOS: per-app volume and mute, plus working volume keys on HDMI and DisplayPort monitors.
Description
macOS gives you one master volume slider. So when a meeting app blares a notification while the music you actually want is barely audible, you can only fix one at the cost of the other. Per-app control has meant buying something like SoundSource.
FreeAudio is a free, open-source menu bar app that covers the parts most people use. Click the icon and every app currently making sound gets its own row with a volume slider and a mute button. The slider runs from 0 to 200%, with 100% (unchanged) in the middle, so you can turn a loud app down or push a quiet web video up. Dragging snaps to 25, 50 and 75%, and the helper processes spawned by browsers and Electron apps are folded under the parent app instead of showing up as a pile of cryptic names.
If your monitor is on HDMI or DisplayPort, this one matters: macOS often greys out the volume slider for those outputs and the keyboard volume keys do nothing. FreeAudio adds a software volume and mute for them, makes the volume keys work, and shows its own volume HUD.
Output devices: Switch outputs, set the output volume and mute, and alert sounds follow along. You can also route one app to a specific output; it falls back to the default while that device is unplugged.
Microphone control: Switch input devices, set the input level and mute.
Monitor software volume: HDMI/DisplayPort outputs with no hardware volume get a working slider. The keys step in 16 increments, or finer with Option+Shift.
Follows your setup: Headphones, AirPods and monitors coming and going, sample-rate changes, sleep and wake. It can launch at login and restarts after a crash, and quitting or crashing always returns every app to its normal volume.
Under the hood it uses Core Audio process taps (macOS 14.2 and later), so there is no virtual audio driver to install. The first time you change an app's volume, macOS asks for System Audio Recording permission; audio is processed live and never recorded or stored. Accessibility permission is only needed for the monitor volume keys.
A few things to know: the current release is built for Apple silicon on a recent macOS, and it isn't notarized, so the first launch needs Open Anyway in Privacy & Security (or an xattr command to clear the quarantine flag). Leave calling apps at 100%, because echo cancellation can't hear its own output while an app is being controlled. Per-app EQ and Audio Unit effects are deliberately not planned.
FreeAudio is a free, open-source menu bar app that covers the parts most people use. Click the icon and every app currently making sound gets its own row with a volume slider and a mute button. The slider runs from 0 to 200%, with 100% (unchanged) in the middle, so you can turn a loud app down or push a quiet web video up. Dragging snaps to 25, 50 and 75%, and the helper processes spawned by browsers and Electron apps are folded under the parent app instead of showing up as a pile of cryptic names.
If your monitor is on HDMI or DisplayPort, this one matters: macOS often greys out the volume slider for those outputs and the keyboard volume keys do nothing. FreeAudio adds a software volume and mute for them, makes the volume keys work, and shows its own volume HUD.
Features
Per-app volume: A slider and mute for each app, remembered per app and applied from its first sound after a relaunch. Apps left at default are never touched.Output devices: Switch outputs, set the output volume and mute, and alert sounds follow along. You can also route one app to a specific output; it falls back to the default while that device is unplugged.
Microphone control: Switch input devices, set the input level and mute.
Monitor software volume: HDMI/DisplayPort outputs with no hardware volume get a working slider. The keys step in 16 increments, or finer with Option+Shift.
Follows your setup: Headphones, AirPods and monitors coming and going, sample-rate changes, sleep and wake. It can launch at login and restarts after a crash, and quitting or crashing always returns every app to its normal volume.
Under the hood it uses Core Audio process taps (macOS 14.2 and later), so there is no virtual audio driver to install. The first time you change an app's volume, macOS asks for System Audio Recording permission; audio is processed live and never recorded or stored. Accessibility permission is only needed for the monitor volume keys.
A few things to know: the current release is built for Apple silicon on a recent macOS, and it isn't notarized, so the first launch needs Open Anyway in Privacy & Security (or an xattr command to clear the quarantine flag). Leave calling apps at 100%, because echo cancellation can't hear its own output while an app is being controlled. Per-app EQ and Audio Unit effects are deliberately not planned.
