I think your question falls into the category of sometimes having too much control can be just as challenging as having too little control. In this case, what you’re experiencing is perfectly normal for your Mac OS X system, the trick is realizing that it’s a setting you can change and a perfectly normal behavior for the system to be mute when you change volume rather than the standard of louder or softer beeps, quacks, bells or similar on volume up / volume down events.
Oh, and did I mention you can choose from any of dozens of system tones for that feedback too? I suppose you could add a “silent” system tone and have that selected too, which would exhibit the same symptom, but that’s not likely: If you’re hacker enough to add new system tones, you’ll know what to do with ’em too.
Right. So, you tap on the Volume Up button on your keyboard and this is what you see on screen:
But there’s no corresponding audio feedback?
No worries. Go to System Preferences… from the Apple menu on the top left and look for Sounds:
You can see it all the way to the right above.
Click on it and you’ll probably be taken to the Output tab as I am:
Useful to double-check that the audio output is pointed where you think – in my case to my Sennheiser Urbanite headphones – but what you really want to do here is click on Sound Effects near the top of this window.
Now you’ll be here:
First thing to check is that the system tone is working. Simply click on another one like Bottle or Frog, then click back on the one you already have selected. Hear it? You’re good.
Then look closely at the check boxes, specifically this one:
Well that seems likely, eh? Play feedback when volume is changed. In fact, that’s the setting. Check that box, close the window and try changing the volume on your MacBook or iMac system.
Fixed? I bet it is!
The post Why doesn’t my Mac have audio feedback on volume change? appeared first on Ask Dave Taylor.