AutoMute is a free, open-source macOS menu-bar utility that silences or restores your system audio automatically whenever your Mac connects to or leaves a specific Wi-Fi network.
What is AutoMute?
AutoMute is a lightweight macOS application that ties your system volume state to your Wi-Fi context. You teach it once — this network means mute, that network means unmute — and from then on it handles the transitions silently in the background. No more frantically hitting the mute key when your MacBook rejoins your office network mid-call, and no more leaving a coffee shop with your laptop inexplicably silent all afternoon.
The project lives on GitHub under Lorenzo45's account, which means the source is fully auditable and community-maintained. For an app that sits quietly in your menu bar and touches your audio settings, that transparency matters.
What does AutoMute do best?
AutoMute shines at eliminating the single most embarrassing laptop moment: the accidental public-volume event. I set it up so my home network always restores audio and my office network always mutes on connect — after a week I stopped thinking about it entirely, which is exactly what a utility should do.
- Per-network mute rules — assign a distinct behaviour (mute or unmute) to as many SSIDs as you like
- Instant triggering — reacts at network-join time, before you've even opened a browser tab
- Menu-bar presence — a small, unobtrusive icon gives you a one-click override when you need it
- No subscription, no telemetry — it's an open-source tool; your network names never leave the machine
The use-case catalogue is surprisingly wide: conference rooms where silence is protocol, home studios where you always want audio on, shared WeWork spaces, university lecture halls. If a location has a consistent SSID, AutoMute can carry the memory for you.
Is AutoMute free?
Yes — AutoMute is completely free to download and use. It is an open-source project distributed under a permissive licence on GitHub, with no paid tier, no nag screen, and no in-app purchases. You can install it via Homebrew Cask or download a release archive directly from the repository.
Who should use AutoMute?
Anyone who regularly moves a Mac between locations with different audio etiquette is the core audience. That means road-warriors shuttling between home offices and client sites, developers in open-plan studios who need silence the moment they dock, and students who bounce between dorm, library, and lecture hall every day.
It is also quietly valuable for shared-machine setups — a Mac mini in a classroom or media room that should be live on the home network but silent everywhere else. If your audio situation is always the same at a given location, AutoMute removes a manual step you've been doing on autopilot for years.
Power users who already rely on Hammerspoon or Keyboard Maestro for Wi-Fi-triggered automation may find AutoMute redundant — those tools can replicate the behaviour inside a broader rule-set. But if you want a dedicated, zero-config solution rather than a scripting project, AutoMute is the faster path.
What are the best AutoMute alternatives?
AutoMute's closest spiritual sibling is Silenz, which ties volume to activity rather than location — a different mental model that suits some workflows better. Lungo and One Switch include audio toggles but lack network-awareness entirely. For full programmable control, Hammerspoon can reproduce AutoMute's behaviour in a Lua script and chain it with dozens of other triggers, but that requires willingness to write and maintain code. Audio Hijack dominates the professional audio-routing space but is a completely different class of tool. For pure network-triggered muting with no setup overhead, nothing on the Mac App Store matches AutoMute's simplicity at its price point (free).
How reliable is AutoMute day-to-day?
In everyday use the trigger is near-instant — the mute fires as soon as macOS confirms the network association, typically within a second or two of the Wi-Fi icon settling. The menu-bar icon doubles as a manual override, which matters on days when you're tethering or using a VPN that briefly drops and rejoins your saved SSID. Because the app's scope is deliberately narrow, there is very little surface area for things to go wrong, and the open-source codebase means bugs get community attention quickly.
