Keyboard shortcuts for switching audio devices on a Mac

Hold Option and click the volume icon in the menu bar to see every input and output in one list and switch with a single click. macOS has no built-in setting to bind a real keyboard shortcut to that switch, so getting one takes either a scripted workaround or an app that adds the shortcut for you.

Switching between speakers and headphones several times a day is common enough that the extra clicks add up, and there is a genuine gap between the built-in options and what most people actually want, which is a single key that just does it.

The fastest built-in option

Hold Option and click the speaker icon in the menu bar (or press Option-Shift-Volume Up/Down, which does the same thing without needing the mouse at all for the up/down steps, though device switching still needs the click version). This opens an extended menu covering both outputs and inputs in one place, rather than the plain list you get from a normal click, which shows outputs only.

This is the quickest route macOS offers natively, and it is worth knowing even if you end up using something else, because it works with zero setup on any Mac. What it is not is a single keystroke: it is still one modifier-click to open the menu and a second click to choose the device, every time.

Why can't I bind a real hotkey to it?

System Settings' Keyboard Shortcuts pane lets you assign keys to menu commands and a fixed list of system actions, but switching the default audio device is not one of the actions on that list. There is no menu item to point a shortcut at, because choosing an output device is not implemented as a standard menu command in the first place.

Binding a shortcut directly in Chorus

Chorus lets you record a keyboard shortcut against any output, any input, or any saved group directly in the app, the same way you would record one in System Settings. Press it and that device or group becomes active immediately, with no menu to open and no click to make. A group you have built, say both Studio Displays combined, gets its own shortcut exactly like a single device does.

Because the shortcut is bound to the group rather than to a generic "next device" command, pressing it always lands on the same thing. There is no cycling through a list and hoping you land on the right one, which is the usual failure mode of a "switch audio" shortcut that just steps through devices in whatever order the system currently has them.

Beyond the keyboard

The same shortcuts also work from outside Chorus itself. If you already use Raycast or a Stream Deck for other shortcuts, Chorus's saved setups can be triggered the same way those tools trigger anything else, so switching your whole audio setup sits alongside whatever other shortcuts you already rely on rather than living in a separate system.

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