You spend five minutes getting your audio levels perfect. Spotify at 30%, Zoom at 100%, Slack at 15%. Then you restart your Mac. Or Slack crashes and relaunches. Or you close Spotify and reopen it later. Every app resets to its default volume. You re-adjust everything. Again.
macOS remembers the system volume across restarts. But it doesn't remember per-app volume — because macOS doesn't have per-app volume control in the first place. There's nothing to remember.
Why apps don't remember their own volume
Some apps (like Spotify and VLC) have internal volume sliders that are saved between sessions. But most apps — browsers, communication tools, system utilities — don't have their own volume controls. And even the apps that do save internal volume only remember their own slider position, not their volume relative to other apps.
What you really want is for the system to remember: "Spotify should be at 30% of the system volume, always." macOS doesn't support this concept.
Volume memory with SoundDial
SoundDial has a Volume Memory feature. When enabled, it saves each app's volume level by its bundle identifier. When the app quits and relaunches — whether you restart it, it crashes, or you restart your Mac — SoundDial automatically restores it to its saved volume.
How it works
- Enable "Remember volume per app" in SoundDial's settings
- Set each app to your preferred volume
- SoundDial saves the level automatically
- When the app relaunches, the volume is restored to exactly where it was
No manual saving. No re-adjusting. The first time you set your volumes is the last time.
What gets remembered
- Volume level — the exact percentage (0% to 200%)
- Mute state — if you muted an app, it stays muted when it relaunches
- Per app — each app's volume is stored independently by bundle ID
New apps get a default volume
When an app launches for the first time (one SoundDial hasn't seen before), it gets a configurable default volume. You can set this default in SoundDial's settings — so new apps start at 80% (or whatever you prefer) instead of potentially blasting at 100%.
Volume memory + profiles = set it and forget it
Volume memory handles the day-to-day: apps keep their levels across restarts. Profiles handle situational switching: "Meeting" mode, "Focus" mode, "Gaming" mode — apply with one click and every app jumps to the right level for that situation.
Together, you almost never manually adjust a volume slider. The app remembers its last level, and when you change contexts, a profile sets everything at once.
Available on the Mac App Store — Apple-reviewed, €14.99 one-time purchase, no subscription, macOS 14.2+.