mactooloud docs.

Download the latest mactooloud disk image from mactooloud.com/download and drag the app into your Applications folder. That's the whole install — no separate installer, no background helper.

The audio engine that powers the per-app mixer lives inside the app — there is no HAL plugin or driver installed in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/. The first time you launch mactooloud, macOS asks once for System Audio Recording so the app can tap each process's output. Click Allow and you're in.

• Requires macOS 14.4 or later (Process Tap API)
• Apple Silicon native (Universal binary for Intel)
• ~12 MB on disk · no background daemon

Click the mactooloud icon in the menu bar to open the mixer. Every app that is currently producing audio appears in the list, with a slider, a live VU meter, and the output device it is routed to.

Drag a slider to change that app's volume in real time. The setting persists across reboots and across macOS audio resets — one of mactooloud's core jobs is remembering the level you set so the OS cannot un-set it.

The first launch shows a macOS prompt asking to grant mactooloud System Audio Recording. Click Allow, return to mactooloud, and the mixer fills with every app currently making sound.

This is the permission that lets macOS 14.4's Process Tap API attach to each running app's output. Nothing is installed system-wide — the engine runs entirely inside the mactooloud process.

Auto-Duck on calls and Mystery Sound Finder both need to watch which app currently owns audio focus. That requires Accessibility permission. The second first-launch prompt sends you to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility — toggle mactooloud on, and the features light up immediately.

The mixer is the heart of mactooloud. Every app currently producing audio appears with a slider; per-app settings persist across reboots and across macOS audio resets.

A stray noise appears out of nowhere — a Chrome tab three Spaces over, a Slack notification you missed. Mystery Sound Finder highlights the exact app making sound right now, so you can mute the source instead of muting your whole Mac.

When a meeting app starts a call, mactooloud fades every other app to a configurable target level. When the call ends, audio lifts back to the original level.

Detects: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, FaceTime, Slack huddles, Discord, Webex. Configure target level (default 20%) and fade duration (default 200ms) in Settings.

Each row in the mixer has an output picker. Send Zoom to AirPods, keep Spotify on your desk speakers, route Discord to a USB headset. No virtual audio devices, no Loopback rituals.

One key combo drops every app to 5%. Tap again to restore the previous mix. The default hotkey is ⌥ ⇧ W; rebind it in Settings → Hotkeys.

A 25/5 timer that ducks distraction apps (Slack, Discord, anything tagged “notification”) during focus blocks, then lifts them on breaks. macOS Focus-mode binding is on the roadmap.

Save the current mix as a profile (Work, Gaming, Movie, …). Swap profiles with a hotkey — every slider, mute, and per-app output is restored in one click.

Chrome usually shows up as one row because macOS reports it as one process. mactooloud talks to Chrome via the Accessibility API to surface the exact tab making sound — and lets you mute that tab in place without leaving the mixer.

System-wide hotkeys for Whisper Mode, profile cycling, and Auto-Duck toggling are on the roadmap for a future release. For now, every action is reachable from the menu bar or the main window.

The driver approval prompt was skipped. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Audio, and toggle mactooloud Audio on. Quit and relaunch mactooloud.

If the toggle is missing, re-launch the app once — macOS only shows it the first time the driver tries to load.

Accessibility permission is missing. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, toggle mactooloud on, and the watcher will start within a second. No app restart needed.

macOS occasionally resets privacy approvals after a major update. If the mixer goes empty, re-grant System Audio Recording from System Settings → Privacy & Security. We commit to shipping a same-day update on every macOS major release so this is the only friction.

Open Help → Reveal Diagnostics from the menu bar. mactooloud writes a redacted log to ~/Library/Logs/mactooloud/ — attach the most recent file to an email at support@mactooloud.com and we will reply within one business day.

No. mactooloud uses macOS 14.4's Process Tap API — no kernel extension, no system extension, no HAL plugin, no installer. The audio engine lives inside the app and disappears the moment you quit it. Different family from BlackHole, BackgroundMusic, and Loopback (which all install virtual audio drivers).

The Process Tap API requires entitlements that aren't available inside the App Store sandbox. We ship via direct download so we can deliver the full feature set; a sandboxed App Store companion may follow later if Apple opens up the entitlements.

mactooloud does less, and does it better. No 10-band EQ, no AU plugins, no AirPlay. Just a focused, native per-app mixer with Mystery Sound Finder, Auto-Duck, and browser tab drill-down — features competitors do not have.

Sliders go read-only until you subscribe. Volumes remain visible — nothing is deleted — so you can pick up exactly where you left off when you come back.