macOS has one output for everything, so sending Spotify to the kitchen while Zoom stays in your headphones needs an app that takes each program’s audio separately. There is no setting in System Settings for it. What exists instead is a handful of apps that carry their own speaker menu, and three third-party mixers that do the job properly.
What does macOS give you on its own?
One output, chosen once, for everything the Mac plays. Control Center, the Sound settings and the volume keys all move that same choice. Apple says so plainly in its own support note: you cannot use AirPlay to send audio to more than one speaker from Control Center on a Mac, and the Music app is the exception it names (Apple Support 105068, 1 May 2026).
So the browser, the game, the podcast app and the video call all queue up behind one setting. Change it and they all move together.
Two half-exceptions live inside apps rather than in the system:
- Apple’s Music app has its own AirPlay picker with tick boxes, so Music can play to several AirPlay speakers while the rest of the Mac stays where it was. That covers Music and nothing else.
- Some media players let you choose a speaker in their own preferences. VLC and IINA both do. Useful, and only for the app you are sitting in.
Which apps let you choose their own speaker?
The one that matters to most people is the video call. Zoom’s audio settings carry a speaker menu of their own, with a test tone beside it, so you can point Zoom at your headphones and leave the Mac’s output on the speakers (changing settings in the Zoom Workplace desktop app). FaceTime has the same idea in its Video menu.
That is the one real built-in split, and it is worth knowing before you spend anything. If your whole problem is the call, the fix is already installed.
Everything else behaves the way macOS behaves. Spotify has a volume slider but no speaker menu on the Mac. A Chrome tab has neither. The Mail chime goes wherever the system output goes.
For anything without its own menu, a second program has to catch that app’s sound before macOS blends it into the single mix, then send it somewhere else. That is why every tool below asks for a system permission the first time you open it. macOS files it under audio recording, and what it covers is the sound your Mac is playing, not your microphone.
What does this look like in a home office?
Like this: the call in your headphones, the music on the floor speakers behind you. Two sounds, two places, at the same time. Without a per-app split you pick one and live with it, which usually means silence for eight hours because the alternative is a colleague hearing your playlist.
It also runs the other way. The music is the thing you want out of your ears after six hours of headphones, and the call is the thing that has to stay private. Either way the Mac is being asked to hold two ideas at once, and on its own it holds one.
The same shape turns up in a shared office with speakers in the room. One thing to sort out first if the setting is a workplace rather than your spare room: consumer Spotify and Apple Music accounts are licensed for personal, non-commercial use, so playing them in a business is against their terms, and a performing-rights licence is a separate job again. That is true whatever software moves the sound around.
Which Mac apps split audio between speakers?
Two from Rogue Amoeba, who have been doing Mac audio for a very long time, and one from us.
SoundSource
SoundSource is the first place to look. It lives in the menu bar and gives every running app a volume, an output menu and a set of effects, including Audio Units, the Mac’s standard plug-in format. Its own page describes sending individual apps to different outputs and streaming a single app over AirPlay, and it groups outputs so one app can reach several AirPlay speakers at once. It is paid, with a free trial you can run first.
If what you want is per-app control on one desk, with an equalizer on your music and a boost on quiet video, this is the tool.
Audio Hijack
Audio Hijack is the recording app from the same company. You build a chain: an Application block as the source, then blocks that adjust and send the audio on. It can capture a single app and play it out somewhere else, so it does reach the same result.
It is built for recording and broadcasting, though. Using it as a permanent router means leaving a session running, and the setup is a workspace rather than a menu bar list. Good if you already own it, heavy if routing is all you need.
Audiout
Audiout starts from the other end of the house. It is a mixer for every speaker you own, and per-app routing is one card inside it.
Add an app in the App Routing card and it gets a row: its icon, its own fader, and an output menu. Point that menu at whichever speakers you ticked, and the app leaves the main mix and plays there instead. Apps you never add carry on as before, following Main Audio, which sits over everything as a ceiling. Routing one app to a speaker is the two-minute version.
An app can be sent to an AirPlay 2 speaker, an older AirPlay 1 receiver, or a Bluetooth speaker. Chromecast is the one exception in the list: a Cast receiver plays the whole mix or nothing, so it cannot be the destination for a single app. Volume is per app as well, which is the same ground per-app volume on a Mac covers in full.
The price is €24.99 once, on Apple Silicon running macOS 14.4 or later, and the free 14-day trial of Audiout for Mac asks for no card and no email if you want to test the split first.
Which of these should you install?
Start with what you already have. If the only sound you need to move is a video call, open Zoom’s audio settings and point it at your headphones. Nothing to buy, nothing to grant, five seconds.
If several apps need their own volume and their own speaker on one desk, and you also want to shape how they sound, SoundSource is the better fit and it is not close on effects.
If the speakers are spread across rooms and the question is which room hears which app, that is the shape Audiout was built for: every app on one mixer, a fader per speaker, and one app allowed to go its own way.
Either way, the setup is an evening of dragging sliders once. After that the call stays in your ears and the music stays on the floor, and you stop choosing between them.
Common questions
Can I keep a Zoom call in my headphones while music plays on a speaker?
Yes, and Zoom is one of the few apps that can do it without help. Zoom's audio settings have their own speaker menu, so you can point Zoom at your headphones while the Mac's system output stays on the speaker. Anything without such a menu needs a mixer that splits audio per app.
Does per-app output work with AirPlay speakers?
It does. A single app can be sent to an AirPlay 2 speaker like a HomePod or a Sonos, to an older AirPlay 1 receiver, or to a Bluetooth speaker. The AirPlay delay comes with it, which is fine for music and poor for video.
Why can't a Chromecast take a single app?
A Chromecast receiver plays the whole mix or nothing. It is not available as the destination for one app's audio in Audiout, so if you want one app on one speaker, pick an AirPlay or Bluetooth speaker for that job and leave the Chromecast in the house-wide mix.