RErendx·Jun 16, 2025
> Mac definitely doesn't
https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic and others.
In Canyon.midkyleneideck
BackgroundMusic
C++2016–2025
kyleneideck / BackgroundMusic
BackgroundMusic
Background Music, a macOS audio utility: automatically pause your music, set individual apps' volumes and record system audio.
9Distinct people
9Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
19.4KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Background Music, a macOS audio utility: automatically pause your music, set individual apps' volumes and record system audio.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year9 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-04-17 12:21:08 UTC to 2025-06-16 00:10:03 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
9 sourcesBackgroundMusic: Set per-app sound volume on macOS
2 points · Open discussiononly use Homebrew for ‘Casks’ (GUI .apps)— `brew cask` subcommand
Nix or pkgsrc for reliable management of CLI tools (both, if you want to try Nix but want an escape hatch)
don't forget to install GNU coreutils, grep, find, and bash. (BSD coreutils are weird and anemic if you're used to GNU. macOS bash is ancient, etc.)
disable cursor acceleration (barely works, but it's the only thing that works): https://plentycom.jp/en/cursorsense/index.html
the only mature terminal emulator on the platform that performs okay (provided you enable GPU acceleration): https://iterm2.com/
recover basic key remapping functionality: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/
recover basic audio controls like per-app volume mixing: https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic
recover FUSE support: https://osxfuse.github.io/
recover configurability for a whole hos
Read the rest
t of missing functionality, like global keyboard shortcuts, through automation (Lua scripting): https://www.hammerspoon.org/
recover clipboard management: https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/
if you don't use some hack to get window tiling, you might also want to...
recover basic window management functionality: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
recover modifier key window drag: https://github.com/dmarcotte/easy-move-resize
good luck.
Background Music for Mac: automatically pause your music, set app volumes
1 points · Open discussionI wish Zoom had an in-app mute button. I'd love it if I didn't have to mute the entire computer.
EDIT: For MacOS, I found this: https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic
In What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?Within Finder Preferences there is a dropdown that asks you when performing a search whether to use global or current directory.
And for volume mixer this exists:
https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic
I have to say it really doesn't seem like you spent much effort trying to actually fix your issues.
In Users are losing out against Big Sur’s sealed SystemA macOS audio utility: automatically pause music, set individual apps' volumes
2 points · Open discussion> If you're using a Mac there isn't a system volume controller with adjustments for each application, only a single global control
True, but for those looking for a solution like this there are options. I personally use SoundControl 2[1] ($10) but there is also a free open source app[2] and a few other options out there.
[1]: https://staticz.com/soundcontrol/
[2]: https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic
In One of the lesser reasons Soundcloud deserved its fateBackground Music, an OS X audio utility
160 points · Open discussion