Change System Volume from Command Line on Mac OS
Oftentimes the awesome GUI applications we love are simply gloss over a command line functionality. While I do love a visual app, it's always good to know how to do things from command line, if only for the sake of automation. I've covered loads of command line secrets, most notably Mac Camera Access, so I wanted to figure out if I could control volume from command line.
Change Mac System Volume
The secret to changing Mac system volume from command line is through osascript:
# Max volume
sudo osascript -e "set Volume 10"
# Mute
sudo osascript -e "set Volume 0"
# 50% volume
sudo osascript -e "set Volume 5"
Values range from 0 (muted) to 10 (maximum volume). Note that you don't get to see a nice volume change indicator -- the volume simply changes without any feedback.
![Facebook Open Graph META Tags]()
It's no secret that Facebook has become a major traffic driver for all types of websites. Nowadays even large corporations steer consumers toward their Facebook pages instead of the corporate websites directly. And of course there are Facebook "Like" and "Recommend" widgets on every website. One...
![Being a Dev Dad]()
I get asked loads of questions every day but I'm always surprised that they're rarely questions about code or even tech -- many of the questions I get are more about non-dev stuff like what my office is like, what software I use, and oftentimes...
![Styling CSS Print Page Breaks]()
It's important to construct your websites in a fashion that lends well to print. I use a page-break CSS class on my websites to tell the browser to insert a page break at strategic points on the page. During the development of my...
![Animated AJAX Record Deletion Using MooTools]()
I'm a huge fan of WordPress' method of individual article deletion. You click the delete link, the menu item animates red, and the item disappears. Here's how to achieve that functionality with MooTools JavaScript.
The PHP - Content & Header
The following snippet goes at the...
Thank you for this tip. Are you sure that the maximum value is 10? On my Mac with High Sierra, the maximum value get on 7. The 8, 9, 10 also change the value to maximum. I did double check it by viewing the pop-up small window on volume indicator on menu bar.
This is how it’s done on Mojave:
The deprecated way is to specify a number between 0 and 7 for “set volume”
Is there a way to similarly look up the current volume setting (let’s say, in Mojave or Catalina)?
Options to get the current volume setting:
or