A Sonos speaker that supports AirPlay 2 shows up in the Mac’s sound menu, and the Music app can send to several. Every other app gets one Sonos at a time unless a mixer app sends it. So the short answer depends on two things: which Sonos you own, and which app the sound is coming from.
Which Sonos speakers take AirPlay?
Sonos keeps the list on its own support page, Stream AirPlay audio to Sonos. As of September 2026 it names the Era 100, Era 100 Pro, Era 100 SL and Era 300, One (Gen 1 and Gen 2), One SL, Five, Play:5 (Gen 2), Beam, Beam Ultra, Arc, Arc SL, Arc Ultra, Playbase, Ray, Move, Move 2, Roam, Roam 2, Roam SL, Amp, Port, and the IKEA SYMFONISK speakers and lamps.
What is missing matters more. The Play:1, the Play:3, the first-generation Play:5 and the Playbar are not on that list, and no update puts them there. If your house is built on those, you are not sending AirPlay to them directly.
There is a way round it that costs nothing. Sonos’s page says that when an AirPlay-compatible Sonos is playing AirPlay audio, you can group it with any other Sonos in your system for multi-room playback. So one Era 100 takes the AirPlay stream from the Mac, and the old Play:1 in the kitchen joins that group in the Sonos app. The whole group plays together, fed by the one speaker your Mac can actually reach.
Two other limits from the same page, worth knowing before you go looking for a fault: a Sonos set up as a surround speaker does not accept AirPlay, and a Sonos will not play AirPlay audio while the Mac or phone sending it is on a phone call.
How do I send my Mac to one Sonos?
System Settings, then Sound, then pick the Sonos under Output. Sonos documents that route itself. If you have the volume control showing in the menu bar, it lists the same speakers and takes one click.
Two conditions before the speaker appears at all. The Mac and the Sonos have to be on the same Wi-Fi network, so a guest network hides it, and the Sonos has to be set up in the Sonos app already. If the list is empty, that is nearly always where the fault is.
From that moment every sound the Mac makes goes to that Sonos: Spotify, a browser tab, the notification chime. It behaves like any other speaker, and the volume keys on the keyboard move it.
Sonos also notes that macOS can stream to Sonos over the older AirPlay 1, and that you may get a delay or audio interruptions if you do. Take that as the reason to check which of your speakers is on the compatibility list rather than as something to tune.
Can my Mac play to several Sonos speakers at once?
Not from the sound menu. macOS sends the Mac’s audio to one speaker, and two Sonos speakers in two rooms are two speakers, so you are asked to choose. Apple says the same thing in its own note about AirPlay from a Mac.
Apple’s Music app is the exception, and it is a real one. Its AirPlay picker has tick boxes: select the kitchen Era and the bedroom One and both play, in time, for nothing. If your listening is Apple Music and only Apple Music, that is the end of the problem.
The Sonos app’s own grouping is the second free route, and it works from the other direction. Group the speakers in the Sonos app first, then send AirPlay to the one that leads the group.
What about Spotify?
Spotify has its own answer that does not involve the Mac at all. With Spotify Connect you pick the Sonos from inside the Spotify app, and the speaker streams the music itself while your Mac acts only as the remote. The Mac can then sleep, and the music keeps going.
The catch is that Connect hands the job to one Sonos, so several rooms means grouping them in the Sonos app. And Connect only carries Spotify. Anything else on the Mac, a browser tab, a podcast app, a call, is back to one AirPlay speaker at a time. Why Spotify reaches only one AirPlay speaker from a Mac walks through where that limit sits.
Why is the Sonos behind my Mac?
Because AirPlay sends the audio ahead of time and the speaker holds it for a moment before playing it, which is what stops a song stuttering when a piece of it arrives late over Wi-Fi. Rogue Amoeba’s support page on audio delays and speaker synchronization puts the AirPlay figure at two seconds.
Nothing removes that. It is invisible during an album or a podcast, and it makes any Sonos a poor choice for a film you are watching on the Mac at the same time.
One more thing to go in with your eyes open. Sonos does not support third-party senders. In its own community forum, a Sonos staff member answering a question about Airfoil wrote, “As it’s a third party app we can’t guarantee it will work” (Sonos Community, 4 April 2025). Audiout is a third-party sender in exactly the same sense, so if something breaks between a Sonos firmware update and an app like ours, Sonos’s support team is not going to be the one who fixes it.
Where Audiout comes in
Audiout is a mixer that sits between your Mac and every speaker in the house, and Sonos is one of the brands it plays to. It reaches Sonos over AirPlay 2, so the compatibility list above is its list too. The older speakers it cannot reach directly, and grouping them in the Sonos app is still the answer there.
What changes is how many and from what. Any app on the Mac, not only Music. Several Sonos speakers at once, each with its own fader, so the kitchen sits at 80% and the bedroom at 45% without touching the music itself. They are held in time by AirPlay 2, the same clock Apple’s own picker uses.
And the mix is not only Sonos. A HomePod, an Apple TV, a Bluetooth speaker on the terrace and two Sonos indoors all appear as rows on the same mixer, which is the whole subject of mixing speaker brands together. Audiout costs €24.99 once and needs Apple Silicon on macOS 14.4 or later, and the free 14-day trial of Audiout for Mac asks for no card and no email.
So which route is yours?
One Sonos and one Mac: the Sound settings, and you are finished in ten seconds. An Apple Music library across several rooms: the Music app’s picker, free and already installed. Spotify to one room, with the Mac free to sleep: Spotify Connect.
If the sound is coming from a browser, a podcast app or anything else, and you want it in more than one room at once with a different volume in each, that is the gap none of the free routes cover.
Common questions
Which Sonos speakers accept AirPlay from a Mac?
Sonos lists the AirPlay-compatible products on its own support page, and the list covers the Era range, One, One SL, Five, Beam, Arc, Move, Roam, Amp, Port, Play:5 (Gen 2) and the IKEA SYMFONISK speakers. The older Play:1, Play:3, first-generation Play:5 and Playbar are not on it. Those older speakers can still join by being grouped in the Sonos app with a Sonos that is playing AirPlay.
Can I play Spotify from my Mac to two Sonos speakers?
Not from the Mac's Spotify app on its own, because an AirPlay pick from the Mac takes one speaker. Spotify Connect is the native route. Pick the Sonos inside Spotify and the speaker streams the music itself, then group the other Sonos in the Sonos app. If the audio has to come from the Mac, a mixer app is what sends it to several at once.
Why is the Sonos a second or two behind my Mac?
AirPlay sends the audio slightly ahead of time and the speaker holds it before playing, which is what keeps music smooth over Wi-Fi. Rogue Amoeba puts the AirPlay figure at two seconds. Nothing removes it, so it goes unnoticed during an album and ruins anything you have to watch at the same time.