How to turn off audio ducking on a Mac during calls

By Hardeep Singh, maker of CallLane · Updated 8 October 2026

macOS has no setting that turns off call audio ducking. When a call app starts its voice processing, macOS lowers every other sound by about 20 dB until the call ends. The VoiceOver “audio ducking” checkbox is a different feature and doesn't change it. To keep music and video at full volume, the call has to play through its own output device, which is what CallLane sets up for you.

What audio ducking is

Ducking means one sound gets quieter so another one is easier to hear. On a Mac, call apps ask macOS for voice processing: echo cancellation and noise reduction for your mic. When they do, macOS also turns everything else down. Spotify, YouTube, a film in QuickTime, a game. It all drops to roughly a tenth of its loudness, about 20 dB, and stays there until the call hangs up.

You'll see it with FaceTime, WhatsApp, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack huddles and Discord. It's built into macOS, so every app that uses Apple's voice processing gets it.

Why the usual fixes don't work

• The VoiceOver setting. Lots of answers online say to untick Audio ducking in VoiceOver Utility. That setting only controls whether other sound gets quieter while VoiceOver, the screen reader, is talking (Apple’s description). Calls ignore it. More on that mix-up.
• Turning the volume up. The system volume raises the call and the music together, so the gap between them stays the same.
• A setting in the call app. Since macOS 14, Apple lets each app choose how much it ducks, but most call apps keep the default and don’t give you a switch.

Fix 1: send the call to a different output

macOS ducks the output device that the call is using. So if the call plays on one device and your music plays on another, the music keeps its volume. You can try it by hand: pick your Mac’s built-in speakers as the call app’s speaker and keep your music on your headphones. It works, but the call now comes out of the speakers, and your mic picks it up.

The clean version needs a virtual audio device for the call and something that forwards that device to your headphones. People build this with BlackHole and Loopback. It takes some setup, and you redo it when your headphones change.

Here’s where each call app keeps its speaker setting:

Fix 2: let CallLane do it

I built CallLane because this kept ruining my FaceTime film nights. It installs a small audio device called CallLane. You pick it as the speaker in each call app once, and CallLane forwards it to whatever headphones or speakers you’re using. macOS ducks the CallLane device and nothing else, so your music stays loud and the call stays where you set it.

It also fixes the second call problem on Bluetooth headphones: it keeps the input on your Mac’s mic so your AirPods don’t drop to headset quality. See why AirPods sound bad on calls.

CallLane runs on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel. It's a one-time purchase with a 14-day refund.

If the ducking doesn’t go away after the call

Sometimes macOS keeps everything quiet after you hang up. Restarting the audio service fixes it without a reboot. Open Terminal and run sudo killall coreaudiod. Sound cuts out for a second or two and comes back at normal volume.

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