Skip to content

Software Manual: separate input and output device selection on macOS #1163

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Open
jshipman42 wants to merge 2 commits into
base: next-release
Choose a base branch
from
+16 −1
Open

Software Manual: separate input and output device selection on macOS #1163

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
12f1ef9
Software Manual: document the separate macOS input and output devices
jshipman42 Aug 22, 2026
ee0607a
Software Manual: add the macOS input/output device screenshot
jshipman42 Aug 22, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions assets/img/en-screenshots/input-output-devices-macos.inc
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c3a53a83-8617-4df5-8201-9b7777fd7c96
16 changes: 15 additions & 1 deletion wiki/en/Software-Manual.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -224,8 +224,22 @@ This turns on a sound alert for when someone joins a Server, or when receiving a

### Audio Device

What you see here depends on your operating system. On macOS there are two menus, "Input Device" and "Output Device", described below. On every other platform there is a single "Audio Device" menu.

Under the Windows operating system the ASIO driver (sound card) can be selected using Jamulus. If the selected ASIO
driver is not valid an error message is shown and the previous valid driver is selected. Under macOS the input and output hardware can be selected.
driver is not valid an error message is shown and the previous valid driver is selected.

@pljones pljones Aug 22, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Ugh... For a separate piece of future work:

  • as we now have this platform dependent, I think this section of the screen should only have anything in it if there's something to select between. Jack and Oboe, for example, are fixed values, so a drop down is misleading.


### Input and output devices on macOS

<figure><img src="{% include img/en-screenshots/input-output-devices-macos.inc %}" style="float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:20px;" loading="lazy" alt="Image of the input and output device menus on macOS"></figure>

On macOS you choose your sound hardware in two menus rather than one. "Input Device" sets what Jamulus listens to, and "Output Device" sets what you hear through. They don't have to be the same piece of hardware, so you can play through an audio interface and listen through your computer's built-in output if you prefer.

Each menu only lists hardware that can do that job, so a pair of speakers won't show up under "Input Device".

Choose "System Default In Device" or "System Default Out Device" to use whatever is set in the macOS Sound settings when Jamulus starts.

Changing one of the menus leaves the other one alone, along with its channel mapping.

### Input/output channel mapping

Expand Down