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Muting microphone input with SoundSource

SoundSource provides several convenient ways to mute your microphone, preventing its input from being heard by other apps on your Mac.

Mute from the keyboard (Create a “cough” button)

Using SoundSource’s ability to make global keyboard shortcuts, you can configure a “cough” button to mute your audio with a quick press of the keyboard.

Assign a Toggle Mute keyboard shortcut to your microphone in the Audio Devices window, as shown above. When you press it, your microphone will instantly be muted.

Mute in two mouse clicks

You can quickly mute the input from SoundSource’s main window.

1. Click the SoundSource icon in the menu bar to display SoundSource.

2. Click the Mute button next to Input, in the System section.

Mute in a single mouse click

Two clicks is good, but it’s possible to mute your microphone with a single click, using the optional menu bar icon.

To enable the menu bar icon for your input device, expand the Input controls in the System section of SoundSource’s main window. Click the Options menu (gear icon), and enable the Show in menu bar switch.

You’ll now see a microphone and meter icon in the upper-right of the menu bar, near the clock. Click anywhere on this icon to mute all input from your microphone. The icon’s level meter will now be X’ed out, to indicate the device is fully muted.

Automation options

You can also use Shortcuts workflows with SoundSource to mute devices, with the Set Device Mute action. See the Shortcuts page of the SoundSource manual for more details.