Background Music for Mac
Automatically pause your music and set volume for individual apps.
Free
In English
Version 0.5.0When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission
Background Music overview
Background Music is an audio utility to automatically pause your music, set volume for individual apps, and record system audio.
Features
- Automatically pauses your music player when other audio starts playing and unpauses it afterwards
- Per-application volume, boost quiet apps
- Record system audio
- No restart required to install
- Runs entirely in userspace
What's new in version 0.5.0
New
- Per-app mute button by @TwelfthFace in #843
- Configurable auto-pause delays, for better YouTube compatibility, by @jackdrowlands in #818
- Improved per-app volume support for Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Arc Browser, NAVER Whale and Discord. Thanks to @manzick (#741), @abdulkadiryugruk (#839) and @GloryWord (#852).
- Background Music now stops processing audio when nothing is playing, so macOS won't show the microphone indicator. It still shows while audio is playing. We're working on that. (2171d9f)
- Installs without needing Rosetta 2 installed (48bdcd1)
- Turning on debug logging now also enables it in Background Music's virtual audio driver (BGMDriver) (0f808cf)
Fixes
- Fix a crash when an app's volume is set with no bundle ID by @abdulkadiryugruk and @kyleneideck in #839
- Fix the volume icon not being centred in the menu bar by @7Backwards in #767
- Fix multiple crashes in Background Music.app by @johzzy in #777 and #778
- Fix a theoretical crash (use-after-free) in audio playthrough (5158af0)
- Fix the "device is running" listener doing nothing (c235bc9)
- Fix BGMXPCHelper showing as "Kyle Neideck" in System Settings (86ca21c)
Under the hood
- Code cleanup and refactoring to support C++11 by @johzzy in #779 and #781, and a log-message fix in #776
- Update Homebrew installation instructions by @khipp in #785
- Fix BGMDriver and BGMXPCHelper debug builds not loading on recent macOS (8769ff7)
- Fix warnings on Xcode 26.5 (f5435da)
- Remove BGM_WrappedAudioEngine and other dead code (035e4de)
New Contributors
- @manzick made their first contribution in #741
- @7Backwards made their first contribution in #767
- @johzzy made their first contribution in #776
- @khipp made their first contribution in #785
- @jackdrowlands made their first contribution in #818
- @abdulkadiryugruk made their first contribution in #839
- @TwelfthFace made their first contribution in #843
- @GloryWord made their first contribution in #852 (partially merged so far)
Background Music for Mac
Free
In English
Version 0.5.0
What users say about Background Music
Value: 3.0
This app is great, that is when it works. When it worked it controlled the volume of any app/SW producing sound. When it didn't, it looked like it should, but didn't, just volume sliders that did nothing. VERY frustrating! I was initially very pleased with this app but after a couple days it ended up taking up a bit more of my time trying to make it work over simply adjusting volume on a per-app basis. Macs should have something like this built into the OS anyways, Windows does.
Other user ratings:
Ease of use | 4.0
Features | 5.0
Reliability | 2.0
Customer support | 5.0
Write a detailed review about Background Music
What customers like
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(12 Reviews of Background Music)
Comments
User Ratings
Jul 24, 2024
Version: 0.4.3
I loved this app, but since switching to a new mac (M3 mac macbook) and sonoma 14.3, the sound on my firefox is garbled when it is on. Are there any fixes for this?
Sep 27, 2023
Version: 0.4.0
I really like this when I'm in simultaneous meetings. One weird thing happened though, I was dropped from one meeting (Slack huddle) about an hour after install. Is this common?
Oct 1, 2022
Version: 0.4.0
I have exactly the same problem as Lucubration. I installed a previous version 1 year ago, and since then (beginning at some point) MacOS 11.x on Macbook Pro just started reducing the volume down to like 50% or so of the intended volume. The volume slider stays at 100%. This happens with all applications including MacOS Sound Settings menu. Yesterday I suspected this program might be the problem (since I've done EVERYTHING else other than reinstall the OS.) I updated to 4.0, and that didn't change the problem. Then I grabbed the source code and ran the uninstall script, rebooted, and the problem persists. I have to unplug and replug headphones to fix the problem, and then instantly the problem begins again gradually reducing the volume. It can't just be a coincidence that Lucubration has the same issue. This basically makes my Mac unusable (was using for home entertainment....)
Sep 22, 2022
Version: 0.4.0
The previous version (0.3.2) worked for me in Mavericks (macOS 10.9.5); the main "problem" was the humongous icon that stuck down from the screen-top menu bar and couldn't be removed. (Never saw anything that intrusive or hideous before!) But the program itself worked.
It wouldn't launch in High Sierra (macOS 10.13.6) at all, not even enough to "Update" the program… so I went through their uninstall procedure as detailed on the developer's pages on GitHub, then downloaded & reinstalled the newest version (0.4.0), following all the instructions very carefully... and it STILL won't launch at all. Total waste of my time!
I still have the problem that audio in all my web browsers (such as accompanying a YouTube video, etc.) plays much, much softer than the Mac's system volume or iTunes does. Still have no idea why, and with this "Background Music" app non-functional, no idea of a solution. Any ideas? Thank you.
Jan 19, 2022
Version: 0.3.2
Love this app! Simple and easy to use, does everything I needed it to and even helped me with quiet movie files on my old MacBook. In comparison to similar apps costing over 50$, this is stellar. I use it with XCode 12.4 on Catalina. Go to the GitHub if there are any problems; the explanation there is straight forward.
