How to Use Your Mac's Media Keys to Adjust Speaker Volume on a DisplayPort, HDMI, or Thunderbolt Monitor

I'm on the fence about this solution, but I would like to control the volume from my Mac (as opposed to the speakers themselves).

I can control the volume output level of HDMI/DisplayPort audio without modifying Windows 10 from my PC. It works out of the box with the volume slider and volume keys on keyboard.

 

There is a commercial remake of soundflower called Sound Control ($10)

 

Looks promising, except the feature we are discussing here doesn't seem to work on Mojave yet?

 

I use it to control audio volume of external speakers connected to a 4k monitor over DisplayPort on a 12" Macbook running Mojave.
I think they meant that you can't route sound from individual apps to different audio outputs on Mojave, but I never used this feature.

 

Hello All,

What is the difference between the 2ch audio and the 64ch audio on SoundFlowers Interface?

I do a lot of video editing and want to know what option would give me the best sound option.

Thanks!

Michael

 

Yup, and it says "Signed Version for macOS Mojave (10.15) and earlier"

WTF...10.15


I tried to get this to work, it doesn't, at least not on my system.

 

I recently tried Soundflower to do this and while it worked well for iTunes I found when I play a youtube video in Safari the audio has horrible crackling and screeching. I couldn’t find a fix so I had to uninstall it.

2018 15” MPB on Mojave

 

Wow, this is great! It's working for me to control the volume of my Sony TV connected via HDMI. And, unlike Soundflower, there's no sound delay. And, it works with the standard Mac volume keys. The only thing that's not perfect is the volume range. When it's at the lowest volume, it's not quite as low as I might want it. I can turn down the volume ON my external monitor, but of course that limits the max volume that I might want. But, still, it's pretty good and much better than Soundflower.

 

Just installed this and it seems to be working well for me. As BobMcBob mentioned the volume control range is not as expansive as I would prefer, but volume control from my keyboard is back, so I am happy.

It is on sale at the moment so I bought a license after downloading and installing the trial version.

Thanks for the tip!

 

A similar problem is adjusting the brightness on an external monitor. The standard Mac brightness keys don't work. I installed Brightness Slider from the app store. It's not bad, but it doesn't use the normal brightness keys. You can set your own keyboard shortcut, but you can't use the normal brightness keys. Does anyone have a better solution for that?

 

Sorry for late reply, I don't visit macrumors often.
You can go lower than one notch of volume, hold Shift+Option+[your volume key]. It's stock Mac OS feature.

I use free app called Lunar https://lunarapp.site
It works if your external monitor supports DDC (most of them do)
It mirrors your internal screen brightness level on your external screen, which is great if you have auto-adjust on.

 

That is extremely helpful -- much appreciated!