A silent Mac is almost never a hardware failure. Work down this list in order: mute state, the volume level, the output device that is actually selected, whether a Bluetooth device is really carrying the sound, and whether the app itself is muted. One command resets the audio system before you ever need a full reboot.
Every step below takes seconds and risks nothing. The list is ordered by how often each cause turns out to be the real one, not by how technical it sounds: a wrong output device accounts for more silent Macs than every other cause on this list combined.
Check mute and the volume level first
Press the Mute key on the keyboard (F10 on most Mac keyboards) and check whether it is toggled on rather than off. It is easy to hit by accident, especially on a keyboard shared with a game or an app that also binds F-keys. Next, open the Sound icon in the menu bar, or Control Center on macOS Ventura (13) and later, and check the slider is not sitting at zero. A slider at 1% can look the same as silence unless you look closely.
If headphones are physically plugged into the Mac's jack, unplug and replug them. A jack that has not been detected cleanly by macOS will keep routing sound to the built-in speakers, or to nothing, until the connection is re-read.
Is your Mac sending sound to the wrong device?
This is the single most common cause of "no sound" reports, ahead of mute or volume. Click the Sound icon in the menu bar and macOS shows every available output with a tick next to the one currently selected. After connecting an external monitor, a dock, or a Bluetooth device, that tick often lands somewhere other than the Mac's own speakers, silently, with no warning it happened.
Select the correct device from that list and check again. If this keeps happening every time you plug something in, our guides on playing audio through two speakers at once and sending one app to a different output cover why macOS keeps moving the selection. Chorus keeps the full list of outputs one click away from the menu bar with the current selection always visible, faster to check than opening System Settings each time.
A Bluetooth device connected but not actually carrying sound
Bluetooth pairing and audio output selection are two separate systems on a Mac. It is easy to assume that a device showing Connected in Bluetooth settings must also be the thing playing sound, but that is not automatic. Open System Settings, then Bluetooth, and confirm the device says Connected. Then check the Sound menu separately and confirm the same device has the tick, not just a place in the list.
AirPods and similar headsets sometimes stay connected to a Mac for calls while a different device, often the built-in speakers, remains selected for everything else. Turning the device off and back on, or forgetting it and pairing again, usually forces macOS to re-pick it as the active output.
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Download for MacCheck per-app volume and the app's own mute button
System volume is not the only volume on a Mac. Chrome and Safari mute individual tabs, shown as a speaker icon with a line through it on the tab itself. Spotify, Music, Zoom, and most video apps carry their own volume slider that sits underneath the system level rather than replacing it, as covered in our guide to setting a separate volume for each app. An app set to 0% internally stays silent no matter where the system slider sits, because the system is correctly playing audio that the app itself has turned all the way down.
Quit and reopen the app if its own controls look correct but it stays silent. Some apps cache a device that has since disconnected and do not notice until restarted.
Why does the Sound settings pane or menu bar icon look stuck?
Occasionally the Sound section of System Settings hangs, spins, or shows a device list that does not match what is connected. The menu bar volume icon can look frozen at one reading even while the level is genuinely changing underneath it. This is not a broken settings app: it is almost always coreaudiod, the background process responsible for every audio route on the Mac, stuck in a state it has not recovered from cleanly. Closing and reopening System Settings rarely helps, because the fault sits below the interface.
Restart just the audio system before you restart the whole Mac
Open Terminal and run:
sudo killall coreaudiod
This stops coreaudiod, and macOS restarts it immediately, the same way it does automatically every time the Mac sleeps and wakes. Whatever was playing pauses for a second or two and may need pressing play again, but nothing is lost and no other app quits. It resolves the great majority of stuck audio states: wrong device lists, a frozen menu bar icon, or sound that stopped mid-session for no visible reason. Try this before a full reboot; it does the same underlying job in seconds rather than minutes.
If sound is still missing after that, check Activity Monitor for coreaudiod using an unusually high amount of CPU, which points to a specific app repeatedly crashing it rather than a one-off glitch.
For every option available on a Mac, see Apple's own guide to sound output settings.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my Mac suddenly have no sound at all?
Almost always a mute or a wrong device, not a hardware fault. Check the physical or on-screen mute state, the volume level, which output device is actually selected, whether a Bluetooth device is connected but not carrying the audio, and whether the app itself is muted. In that order, one of those five explains nearly every silent Mac.
What does sudo killall coreaudiod actually do?
It stops coreaudiod, the single background process macOS uses to route and mix every sound on the Mac, and macOS immediately starts a fresh copy of it. Playback pauses for a second or two and any app mid-sound needs to be pressed play again, but no data is lost and no app quits. It is a safe way to reset the audio system without a full reboot.
Is it safe to run sudo killall coreaudiod?
Yes. It only restarts the audio daemon, the same thing that happens automatically every time the Mac sleeps and wakes. It does not touch your files, your settings, or any app other than briefly interrupting whatever was playing. macOS relaunches the process on its own within a second or two.
Why is my Mac playing sound through the wrong speaker or display?
Because macOS keeps a single selected output device and does not always pick the one you expect, especially after connecting a monitor, dock, or Bluetooth device. Click the Sound icon in the menu bar to see every available output with a tick next to the one currently selected, and choose the right one directly from that list.
Why does Bluetooth show connected but I still have no sound?
Bluetooth pairing and audio output selection are two separate systems on a Mac. A device can sit in Bluetooth settings as Connected while a different device, such as the Mac's built-in speakers, is still the one selected to actually play sound. Being paired does not automatically make a device the active output.
