How to permanently mute an app on Windows 10

Windows 10 offers excellent audio control for all your audio devices as well as for the various apps that you’ve installed. You can, for example, set a different volume for your headphones and when you connect them, Windows 10 will automatically adjust them. Similarly, you can also change the volume of apps individually via the volume mixer. What you may not know is that the volume mixer will remember the volume level that you’ve set for an app. You can use it to permanently mute an app on Windows 10.

Mute app on Windows 10

Run the app that you want to mute. If the app is capable of playing audio, running it alone will get it to appear in the volume mixer. On the off chance that the app doesn’t appear, play something in it so that it outputs sound.

Next, right-click the speaker icon in the system tray and select Open Volume Mixer. The volume mixer features every single app that’s running and capable of playing sound. Each app has its own volume slider that you can change independent of the other apps and the master volume.

Click the speaker icon under the slider for the app that you want to permanently mute and you’re done. Windows 10 will remember this setting. The next time you open the same app, visit the volume mixer again and you will see that the volume is still muted.

That’s about it however, any time you need the app to play sound, you will have to remember that you muted it. Restarting the app will never unmute it since it’s volume has been cut off at the system level.

You will notice that among the apps listed in the volume mixer, there’s also something called ‘System Sounds’. This isn’t an application. Instead, it’s for the system sounds you hear e.g., the new notification alert. If you find system sounds annoying but can’t be bothered disabling them all one-by-one, you can mute them here. All other sounds will continue to play like they normally do.

These settings are sound device specific. You may mute the volume for a particular app when you’re using your speakers but if you also want to mute it when you’ve connected a different audio device, you will have to mute it separately. It’s easy enough to do; connect the other audio device to your Windows 10 machine and run the app you want to mute. Open the Volume Mixer again and mute the volume for the app. Repeat for all audio devices that you use.