Tranquillity Maker

Tranquillity Maker is a macOS app that mixes the Background Sounds built into your Mac. I also make Note Repo, a daily notes app for macOS.

macOS comes with 16 Background Sounds, from Balanced Noise to Rain on Roof. You find them in the Accessibility settings, and they play one at a time. Tranquillity Maker plays as many as you want, each at its own volume.

Here’s the app in 30 seconds:

Turn on a sound and it fades in. Add Fire on top of Rain, drag each slider until the mix feels right, and set the overall level with the master volume.

Tranquillity Maker remembers your mix. Next time, Play brings it back.

Fig 1 · 1/4Build a mix, then bring it back

The whole mixer also lives in the menu bar. The icon fills in while something plays. Press Space in the window or the menu bar panel to pause the mix or 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 last, so it reaches Tranquillity Maker until you start something else, like a video in Safari.

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 the sound never stops and restarts.

macOS Tahoe added eight new sounds, like Airplane, Boat and Quiet Night. On Sequoia you can get them too. Tranquillity Maker shows each one’s size and downloads it from Apple with one click.

The app doesn’t include any audio. It plays the same files macOS uses for Background Sounds. There are no accounts, and nothing about you or your mix leaves your Mac.

Under the hood it’s a SwiftUI app with no dependencies. The audio runs through AVAudioEngine.

What you get

Tranquillity Maker costs $20 including tax, paid once. You get the full MIT-licensed source code, so you can use it, change it, and build your own version. There is no subscription.

Download and install

After buying, connect your GitHub account in Polar and accept the invitation to the private repository. Open its Releases page to download the app and source.

Unzip the Mac app and drag Tranquillity Maker to your Applications folder. It runs on macOS 15 or later · Apple silicon and Intel.

Tranquillity Maker is signed with my Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Download later versions manually from the private repository’s Releases page and replace your installed copy.

iPhone and iPad

The purchase also includes the iPhone and iPad source code, which you build and install with Xcode. It has the same screen as the Mac window, with the sounds in two columns on the iPhone. The mix keeps playing when you lock the screen, and you pause it from the lock screen or Control Center.

iOS comes with the same Background Sounds, but apps can’t read the copies it installs. So on iPhone and iPad every sound downloads from Apple, with one tap.

The iPhone and iPad version is supplied as source, with no App Store download. Install it on your own device from Xcode. I wrote How to install your own apps on your iPhone with Xcode. If you later submit a native app, I wrote what to check before App Review. The README has the steps for this app.

There’s also an experimental Apple TV version. I wrote How to create an Apple TV app about adding that target, sharing the audio engine with the Mac app, and installing it on the TV.

If you have an Apple TV, I also made Couch Snake, a game for it.