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System sounds and Music in 2020.

Can I seperate system sounds from Music so that music plays through external speakers and system sounds play through internal speakers? (2019 iMac 27" with Catalina)

(reason: so that an email alert doesn't blast the house down while playing loud music and similarly with watching films, DVD, online streaming, Safari or any software that uses sound.)

iMac 27", macOS 10.15

Posted on May 22, 2020 1:28 AM

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Question marked as Apple recommended

Depends. Check System Preferences > Sound. If you have more than one audio device listed you can choose one for Sound Effects in the Sound Effects tab and one in the Output tab.

Posted on May 22, 2020 2:41 AM

8 replies

May 22, 2020 3:10 AM in response to dialabrain

When you plug audio into the headphone output the display switches from internal speakers to headphones. So there's no choice there.

When you use USB audio a separate option for internal and USB device appears but not sure if system sounds are automatically routed to the internal, there seems to be no way of routing audio manually.

For headphones though I suppose there's no way of separating system sounds and audio unless you plug headphones into an intermediary USB device rather than the headphone jack?

May 22, 2020 3:19 AM in response to Klackenhead

Klackenhead wrote:

When you use USB audio a separate option for internal and USB device appears but not sure if system sounds are automatically routed to the internal, there seems to be no way of routing audio manually.

As I mentioned, if you have two sources listed, say USB audio and internal speakers, You can choose internal speakers in the Sound Effects tab, and USB audio in the Output tab.

May 22, 2020 3:24 AM in response to dialabrain

Thanks a lot, I thought that might be the case.

Also, you might know this, I've notice when playing audio through USB that there is occasional clicking or popping noises. Ive read elsewhere that this could be due to Wifi / bluetooth / or firewall and that turning these off could enable a cleaner sound. Is there a way to automatically disable these when you want to play music from the Music App or do I have to go into settings every time?

System sounds and Music in 2020.

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