Apple’s AppleScript for get volume settings will tell you if the speaker (output) is muted:
output muted (a boolean)
but I’m trying to find out if the microphone (input) is muted.
I can use input volume of (get volume settings) to tell me the level that the mic is at, but not whether or not it is muted.
Googling didn’t turn up anything promising, but does anyone know if there is another way?
Can you explain what you mean when you refer to a microphone’s input being muted versus the input volume of the microphone being zero ?
Being muted and having the input volume to zero are not the same.
You can find many examples of people who want to mute their input (usually a mic) being told to set input volume to zero, but what ends up happening is that they can still be heard.
Here is Rogue Amoeba’s SoundSource showing my current input and output levels:
Output (speakers) are at 25% and input (microphone) is set to 20%.
You can see that my “Input” is muted (red icon) but my output is not.
If I run the AppleScript command
get volume settings
it will come back with this:
{output volume:25, input volume:20, alert volume:100, output muted:false}
Now, if I mute my output, SoundSource will look like this:
Both the Input and Output are muted (red icon with small x) but they still show 20% and 25% respectively as their levels.
Now if I run the AppleScript command get volume settings it will come back with this:
{output volume:25, input volume:20, alert volume:100, output muted:true}
The only thing that changed is that muted:false changed to muted:true.
So, you can see that having the input and output muted does not set their volume to zero.
The output is still shown as 25% and the input at 20%.
I can run the AppleScript command
output muted of (get volume settings)
and get either true (is muted) or false (not muted).
If so, I’m not finding the correct syntax.
I tried
input muted of (get volume settings)
but this is the error that I get:
Script Editor says “A identifier can’t go after this identifier.”
There doesn’t seem to be a way to do this with AppleScript/Shell scripting by themselves, out of the box. You would need some third party application.
There may be an ASObjc method.
But, since you have SoundSource installed you may try GUI scripting
tell application "System Events"
tell process "SoundSource"
activate
get value of checkbox 1 of UI element 2 of window "SoundSource"
-->1 = muted
-->0 = unmuted
end tell
end tell
You can “mute” the system input from AppleScript with
set volume input volume -1
This shows up in SoundSource as mute and my Voice Memo test confirms this. Perhaps you can leverage this to ensure a mute? FWIW get volume settings still displays the input volume as zero.
Here is a probably fragile way to check the mute value using Audio Midi Setup:
tell application "Audio MIDI Setup"
activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Audio MIDI Setup"
set MuteValue to value of checkbox 1 of UI element 4 of row 2 of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of tab group 1 of splitter group 1 of window "Audio Devices"
-->1 = muted
-->0 = unmuted
end tell
end tellI did not. I have a Stream Deck button that shows my microphone state, but I never figured out how to get the status from a script (AppleScript or otherwise).
Not sure if this is the perfect solution for the problem, but this works for me on macOS 12.6
use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
tell application "Audio MIDI Setup"
activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell its application process "Audio MIDI Setup"
tell its window "Audio Devices"
tell its splitter group 1
tell its tab group 1
tell its scroll area 1
tell its outline 1
tell its row 2
tell its UI element 4
click checkbox 1
if value is 1 then
display notification "Muted" with title "Input" sound name "Frog"
else
display notification "Unmuted" with title "Input" sound name "Frog"
end if
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
I can’t believe this is so difficult! I spent couple of hours trying to figure this out. Seems, a small Swift utility is the only way. So…
import CoreAudio
import AudioToolbox
/// Returns the AudioDeviceID of the current default input device.
func getDefaultInputDevice() -> AudioDeviceID {
var deviceID = AudioDeviceID(0)
var size = UInt32(MemoryLayout<AudioDeviceID>.size)
var address = AudioObjectPropertyAddress(
mSelector: kAudioHardwarePropertyDefaultInputDevice,
mScope: kAudioObjectPropertyScopeGlobal,
mElement: kAudioObjectPropertyElementMaster
)
let status = AudioObjectGetPropertyData(
AudioObjectID(kAudioObjectSystemObject),
&address,
0,
nil,
&size,
&deviceID
)
if status != kAudioHardwareNoError {
fatalError("Could not get default input device: \(status)")
}
return deviceID
}
/// Returns whether the given device is muted on the *input* side.
func isDeviceMuted(_ deviceID: AudioDeviceID) -> Bool {
var mute: UInt32 = 0
var size = UInt32(MemoryLayout<UInt32>.size)
var address = AudioObjectPropertyAddress(
mSelector: kAudioDevicePropertyMute,
mScope: kAudioObjectPropertyScopeInput,
mElement: kAudioObjectPropertyElementMaster
)
let status = AudioObjectGetPropertyData(
deviceID,
&address,
0,
nil,
&size,
&mute
)
if status != kAudioHardwareNoError {
// Not all devices implement this property, so you might handle errors gracefully
fatalError("Could not get mute status: \(status)")
}
return (mute != 0)
}
// Get the default input device
let inputDevice = getDefaultInputDevice()
// Query mute state
let muted = isDeviceMuted(inputDevice)
// Print "muted" or "unmuted" so other scripts can read it
print(muted ? "muted" : "unmuted")
Then…
swiftc mic-mute-status.swift -o mic-mute-status \
-framework CoreAudio -framework AudioToolbox
The resulting program outputs “muted” or “unmuted”. Tested on Sequoia.