Oliver Haslam on August 19, 2018, 7:05 am

How To Use Multiple Headphones With Your Mac Simultaneously

If you’re anything like me, then you’ve probably got multiple pairs of headphones that you use for different situations – like, for example, a pair of AirPods for general audio use but some more heavy duty over-ear headphones for listening to music.

That’s a fairly common scenario and it can often involve switching between audio inputs quite frequently. However, if you’re using a Mac, there is actually a way to route audio to two destinations simultaneously.

This will work on any Mac running a recent version of macOS and once set up, none of this should need your attention again. Let’s get started on what you need to do, shall we?

Step 1: First off, you need to make sure that both of the audio destinations you want to use are connected to your Mac.

Step 2: Fire up the Audio MIDI Setup app. It’s in the Utilities sub-folder of Applications and you’ve probably never used it before.

Step 3: Click the “+” icon in the lower-left corner and select Create Multi-Output Device.

Step 4: Right-click the multi-output device that you just created before selecting Use This Device For Sound Output.

Step 5: Select the audio devices that you want to group together by ticking the box beside their name. The option for Built-in Output is the one you want if you’re looking to use a wired pair of headphones.

Step 6: Select a Master Device in the top drop-down menu.

Step 7: Tick Drift Correction beside the secondary audio device that you are going to use.

Step 8: Finally, open the Sound pane within System Preferences and select the Multi-Output Device you just created under the Output tab.

Now when you play audio on your Mac, audio will be routed to both of the audio devices you just selected. Magic!