Mix the macOS Background Sounds, each at its own volume

Oct 28, 2026

macOS plays one Background Sound at a time. Use the built-in setting, then layer rain, fire and noise with their own volumes in Tranquillity Maker.

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Your Mac comes with a set of Background Sounds: rain, ocean, a stream, fire, and a few kinds of noise. They’re in the Accessibility settings, and they play one at a time. Pick Rain and you get Rain. You can’t put Fire on top of it, or keep the noise quiet while the rain is louder.

Tranquillity Maker plays the same sounds together, each with its own volume, from a window or the menu bar. We’ll look at what the built-in setting can do first, then build a mix and bring it back the next day.

What you need

You need a Mac with macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. After purchasing Tranquillity Maker, connect GitHub in Polar, accept the private repository invitation, and download the app from Releases. Unzip it and drag Tranquillity Maker to your Applications folder. It’s signed with my Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

The app doesn’t include any audio. It plays the same files macOS uses for Background Sounds, and the ones your Mac doesn’t have yet download from Apple, so you need an internet connection the first time you use those. There’s no account, and nothing about you or your mix leaves your Mac.

Play one sound with the built-in setting

Open System Settings, click Accessibility in the sidebar, then Audio. Turn on Background sounds, click Choose to pick a sound, and drag the volume slider. Apple describes the extra options, like the equalizer and the timer, in Play background sounds on Mac.

You can also add the Hearing control to the menu bar or Control Center, then start, stop and change the sound from there.

That’s the limit of the built-in feature: one sound, one volume. On macOS Tahoe there are 16 sounds to choose from, eight of them new in that release, and you still hear one at a time.

If you’re going to use Tranquillity Maker, turn Background sounds off here. Otherwise the built-in sound keeps playing underneath your mix, and its volume isn’t one of your sliders.

Build your first mix

Open Tranquillity Maker. The window shows every Background Sound as a tile, under the heading Pick a sound.

Click the Rain tile to turn it on. The sound fades in, and the heading at the top now counts the sounds that are playing. Every sound that’s on has a volume slider in its tile.

Now click Fire. It plays on top of Rain, with its own slider. Drag each slider until the mix feels right. The long slider along the bottom of the window is the master volume, which sets the overall level.

A mix works better when one sound carries it and the others sit underneath. Start with the sound you want to hear most at a comfortable level, then add the next one low and raise it slowly. Here are a few made-up starting points:

Rain loud, Fire low                     a cozy room
Dark Noise loud, Stream low             focus with a little movement
Rain on Roof loud, Quiet Night low      winding down in the evening

Download the sounds your Mac doesn’t have

Some tiles show a Download button with the size of the sound, like “Download · 19.3 MB”. Those sounds aren’t on your Mac yet.

Click Download and Tranquillity Maker gets the sound from Apple. When the download finishes, you use it like any other sound.

This is also how you get the eight sounds macOS Tahoe added, like Airplane, Boat and Quiet Night, on a Mac that still runs Sequoia.

You don’t need to keep the window open. The whole mixer also lives in the menu bar, and the menu bar icon fills in while something plays.

Press Space in the window or in the menu bar panel to pause the mix. Press Space again to bring it back.

Since version 1.1, the play/pause key on your keyboard does the same from any app. macOS sends that key to the app that played audio last, so it reaches Tranquillity Maker until you start something else, like a video in Safari.

Bring the same mix back tomorrow

Tranquillity Maker remembers your mix: which sounds were on and the level of each one. The next time you open it, click Play and the same mix comes back.

You won’t hear the loop either. Apple ships each sound as a set of audio files, 1 to 2.5 minutes long. Tranquillity Maker picks one at random and crossfades into the next over 4 seconds, so you don’t hear the sound stop and start again.

The purchase also includes the iPhone and iPad source code, which you build and install with Xcode. That version keeps playing when you lock the screen. I explain the Xcode part in How to install your own apps on your iPhone.

If you don’t hear anything

If a tile is on but you hear nothing, check its slider, the master volume at the bottom, and your Mac’s output volume and device in Control Center.

If you hear a sound that doesn’t change when you move the sliders, the built-in Background Sounds is still playing. Turn Background sounds off in System Settings > Accessibility > Audio, or from the Hearing control.

If a download doesn’t finish, check your internet connection and try again. The sounds come from Apple, so the app needs to reach Apple’s servers.

If the play/pause key starts music or a video instead of your mix, another app played audio more recently. Press Space in the Tranquillity Maker window or menu bar panel once, and the key goes back to your mix. The key needs version 1.1 or later, so if it never works, download the latest version from Releases and replace your copy.

Get Tranquillity Maker

Play macOS Background Sounds together with individual volumes and menu bar controls. Includes iPhone and iPad source code.

See Tranquillity Maker → · $20 including tax, with full source code.