How to Set a Headphone Specific Volume Level in Mac OS X

I don’t know about anyone else, but I always have a very different volume level for my headphones than for my speakers, and if you’re anything like me than this tip is great news. You can actually set headphone-specific volume levels on your Mac, so you won’t have to be constantly toying with the volume levels. That means no more embarrassing moments where your headphones accidentally get pulled from your Mac in a quiet library, and you proceed to blast music for all to hear.

The solution for specifying a volume output is so easy in Mac OS, just do the following on your Mac:

How to Set a Headphone Volume Level on Mac

1. Plug in your Headphones to the Mac output port
2. Go to the  Apple menu and choose the “System Preferences” option
3. Go to the “Sound” control panel and adjust the slider for a Output Volume value for “Headphones” to what you want as the default volume

Note how the sound output shows “Headphones” in this screen shot, as headphones are connected:

If you pull out the headphones you’ll notice the “Headphones” audio output will switch to “Internal Speakers”, and the audio volume output level will be different for the two. Or you can set them to be the same, but that doesn’t make as much sense.

Note how in this screen shot the headphones have been removed, showing the sound output as “Internal Speakers” instead:

Pay attention to how the output level is different in each screen shot, and if you try it yourself you’ll find that connecting and disconnecting audio output will show similar differences so long as you set them to be unique.

Just about every Mac keyboard also has volume adjustment keys that can make this process a bit easier or automated, but many Mac users don’t seem to know this is going on behind the scenes and the levels are different per device. So just remember the volume value is understood by OS X as different for each audio output device that has a line-out connection (AUX or otherwise) and is connected, it’s smart enough to know when something is connected or not.

Check out the video below showing how to set this up, it’s very easy to follow and implement:

Just pick a setting that makes sense for your headphone usage. If your headphones are super loud or your hearing very sensitive, and the choices are still too high for your preferences, there’s a secret ultra-low setting that you can use on the Mac that’s a step above “Mute”.

For mobile users, iOS has a similar Volume Limit setting for the Music app, though it’s not system-wide.