Volume control - fine tune mode

Wed, 23 January 2008

When you press the volume-up or volume-down key on your keyboard you will see a volume control indicator on your screen. There are only 16 steps and if you want to ‘fine-tune’ you will have to go to the system preferences and move the volume control slider pixel by pixel.

OSX volume control

Well, not really. You can still do some fine tuning with your keyboard. Simply press and hold Shift+Option keys and then press volume-up or volume-down. The 16 increments will suddenly become 64, as each step is divided into four. See the rightmost white square on the image above, it’s only half-off, another notch would make it 3/4 off and so on.

You can also toggle the volume feedback sound by simply holding the Shift key while changing the volume with the volume keys. And if you really need to access the sound settings in the  System Preferences, but feel somewhat lazy to reach for the mouse, just hold the Option key and press volume-up or volume-down on your keyboard.

Stumble it!

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Category Posted in Mac, Tips

9 Responses to “Volume control - fine tune mode”

  1. Tom Stoelwinder said: Wed, 23 January 2008 at 23:20

    Wow, awesome tip(s)! Thanks a lot.

  2. Morgan Roderick said: Wed, 23 January 2008 at 23:36

    You gotta love all these little features baked in. No wonder Apples usability / application designers are praised worldwide.

  3. Orestis said: Thu, 24 January 2008 at 00:38

    Too bad that when using a Microsoft keyboard this doesn’t work… Although all keys work as labelled.

  4. Jusin said: Thu, 24 January 2008 at 01:15

    Awesome little tip. I never knew about that one.

  5. subcorpus said: Thu, 24 January 2008 at 01:39

    its not working on MBP … is it for leopard only … ???

  6. Matt said: Thu, 24 January 2008 at 03:27

    Doesn’t seem to work on my MacBook w/10.4.11. Not sure if it matters, but my volume control is set up to also require holding down the FN key.

  7. eve said: Thu, 24 January 2008 at 18:19

    Thanks for this tip! I never knew about this and I sometimes I feel like it’s too soft at one level, but at the next volume level up it’s a little too loud, especially when I’m watching movies in bed. =)

    And to subcorpus: I have a MBP and it works fine. Although I also have Leopard installed..

  8. gp said: Fri, 25 January 2008 at 03:44

    Wow great tip! thanx

  9. maxintech said: Sun, 27 January 2008 at 23:14

    great TIP!

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