Will Lewis
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Working Remotely: Toggle mute from anywhere with a hot key (Mac)

@Will Lewis

These instructions are for Mac users only!

I’m sure you will be familiar with the mute & unmute button in Zoom, Google Meet, Skype, and other video conferencing software. This is useful but it gets harder to use when you need to switch between windows while having control over whether you’re on mute or not.

For example, when conducting interviews, I type out notes and keep my mic muted since my keyboard is loud and it would be distracting for the other people on the call. But clearly I need to unmute when I want to talk and to do this I need to switch focus back to Zoom and click the unmute button, which is hardly a quick seamless action and often breaks the natural flow of the conversation.

It would be far easier if I could press a hot key to toggle mute no matter which window is in focus.

The easiest way I’ve found to do this is with Automator.

Create a Quick Action

Open Automator from applications and create a new Quick Action.

On the left hand side menu, select Utilities and then double-click Run AppleScript.

Automator

Paste in the following AppleScript code on the right hand side.

on run {input, parameters}
	
	set inputVolume to input volume of (get volume settings)
	if inputVolume = 0 then
		set inputVolume to 100
	else
		set inputVolume to 0
	end if
	set volume input volume inputVolume
	return input

end run

File.. save.. and give your quick action a name.

I creatively choose ‘Mute Unmute’.

Assign this quick action to a hot key

To do this open Keyboard in System Preferences and select Shortcuts.

Find your quick action under the Services category, click it and select Add Shortcut.

Type your key combination (hot key) to set this to the quick action.

💡 Use a hot key that isn’t in use by another application, otherwise you may find it doesn’t trigger your quick action. I ran into this issue the first time round. Keycue is an app where you can check which hot keys are in use by which application.

Keyboard Preferences

Test it out

Since there is no visual indicator for the microphone volume in the menu bar on a Mac, it can be tricky to tell if your quick action is actually working.

You can check the microphone volume in Sound via System Preferences by looking at the Input tab.

Another method is to use MuteMyMic , a free app which gives you a visual indication of the Mic volume in the menu bar, very useful to check if you’re actually muted or not!

💡 Some applications, eg Zoom, automatically adjust your microphone volume level, this needs to be turned off otherwise it will conflict with your quick action. Zoom settings

Taking it further with QMK

If you’re familiar with QMK keyboard firmware and have a compatible keyboard, you can update the keymap so that one of your keys triggers the hot key you’ve set above.

You could even turn on and off the specific LEDs on your keyboard (if you have them) to let you know if mute is active or not.

Key LEDs

Productivity