How to mute an application with PowerShell

Question

I'm new to PowerShell and have been playing around with it lately.

My question is, how do you mute an specific application with PowerShell? For example, if I am watching a youtube video in chrome, I can mute chrome only by going into the volume mixer and muting chrome out of the list of apps. Is there a way to do this in PowerShell?

I found an article concerning how to mute everything but not a specific app.

Change audio level from powershell?

Answer 1

I wrapped the example-application posted here in a small powershell-script, so it can be used easily from Powershell, using the static methods. This should be what you are looking for, as long as you specify the correct app-name.

E.g:

[SetAppVolume.AppMuter]::Mute("Mozilla Firefox");

Sample code:

$def = @"
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace SetAppVolume
{
    public class AppMuter
    {
        public static void Mute(string app)
        {
            foreach (string name in EnumerateApplications())
            {
                Console.WriteLine("name:" + name);
                if (name == app)
                {
                    // display mute state & volume level (% of master)
                    Console.WriteLine("Mute:" + GetApplicationMute(app));
                    Console.WriteLine("Volume:" + GetApplicationVolume(app));

                    // mute the application
                    SetApplicationMute(app, true);

                    // set the volume to half of master volume (50%)
                    SetApplicationVolume(app, 50);
                }
            }
        }

        public static float? GetApplicationVolume(string name)
        {
            ISimpleAudioVolume volume = GetVolumeObject(name);
            if (volume == null)
                return null;

            float level;
            volume.GetMasterVolume(out level);
            return level * 100;
        }

        public static bool? GetApplicationMute(string name)
        {
            ISimpleAudioVolume volume = GetVolumeObject(name);
            if (volume == null)
                return null;

            bool mute;
            volume.GetMute(out mute);
            return mute;
        }

        public static void SetApplicationVolume(string name, float level)
        {
            ISimpleAudioVolume volume = GetVolumeObject(name);
            if (volume == null)
                return;

            Guid guid = Guid.Empty;
            volume.SetMasterVolume(level / 100, ref guid);
        }

        public static void SetApplicationMute(string name, bool mute)
        {
            ISimpleAudioVolume volume = GetVolumeObject(name);
            if (volume == null)
                return;

            Guid guid = Guid.Empty;
            volume.SetMute(mute, ref guid);
        }

        public static IEnumerable<string> EnumerateApplications()
        {
            // get the speakers (1st render + multimedia) device
            IMMDeviceEnumerator deviceEnumerator = (IMMDeviceEnumerator)(new MMDeviceEnumerator());
            IMMDevice speakers;
            deviceEnumerator.GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow.eRender, ERole.eMultimedia, out speakers);

            // activate the session manager. we need the enumerator
            Guid IID_IAudioSessionManager2 = typeof(IAudioSessionManager2).GUID;
            object o;
            speakers.Activate(ref IID_IAudioSessionManager2, 0, IntPtr.Zero, out o);
            IAudioSessionManager2 mgr = (IAudioSessionManager2)o;

            // enumerate sessions for on this device
            IAudioSessionEnumerator sessionEnumerator;
            mgr.GetSessionEnumerator(out sessionEnumerator);
            int count;
            sessionEnumerator.GetCount(out count);

            for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
            {
                IAudioSessionControl ctl;
                sessionEnumerator.GetSession(i, out ctl);
                string dn;
                ctl.GetDisplayName(out dn);
                yield return dn;
                Marshal.ReleaseComObject(ctl);
            }
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(sessionEnumerator);
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(mgr);
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(speakers);
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(deviceEnumerator);
        }

        private static ISimpleAudioVolume GetVolumeObject(string name)
        {
            // get the speakers (1st render + multimedia) device
            IMMDeviceEnumerator deviceEnumerator = (IMMDeviceEnumerator)(new MMDeviceEnumerator());
            IMMDevice speakers;
            deviceEnumerator.GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow.eRender, ERole.eMultimedia, out speakers);

            // activate the session manager. we need the enumerator
            Guid IID_IAudioSessionManager2 = typeof(IAudioSessionManager2).GUID;
            object o;
            speakers.Activate(ref IID_IAudioSessionManager2, 0, IntPtr.Zero, out o);
            IAudioSessionManager2 mgr = (IAudioSessionManager2)o;

            // enumerate sessions for on this device
            IAudioSessionEnumerator sessionEnumerator;
            mgr.GetSessionEnumerator(out sessionEnumerator);
            int count;
            sessionEnumerator.GetCount(out count);

            // search for an audio session with the required name
            // NOTE: we could also use the process id instead of the app name (with IAudioSessionControl2)
            ISimpleAudioVolume volumeControl = null;
            for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
            {
                IAudioSessionControl ctl;
                sessionEnumerator.GetSession(i, out ctl);
                string dn;
                ctl.GetDisplayName(out dn);
                if (string.Compare(name, dn, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) == 0)
                {
                    volumeControl = ctl as ISimpleAudioVolume;
                    break;
                }
                Marshal.ReleaseComObject(ctl);
            }
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(sessionEnumerator);
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(mgr);
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(speakers);
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(deviceEnumerator);
            return volumeControl;
        }
    }

    [ComImport]
    [Guid("BCDE0395-E52F-467C-8E3D-C4579291692E")]
    internal class MMDeviceEnumerator
    {
    }

    internal enum EDataFlow
    {
        eRender,
        eCapture,
        eAll,
        EDataFlow_enum_count
    }

    internal enum ERole
    {
        eConsole,
        eMultimedia,
        eCommunications,
        ERole_enum_count
    }

    [Guid("A95664D2-9614-4F35-A746-DE8DB63617E6"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    internal interface IMMDeviceEnumerator
    {
        int NotImpl1();

        [PreserveSig]
        int GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(EDataFlow dataFlow, ERole role, out IMMDevice ppDevice);

        // the rest is not implemented
    }

    [Guid("D666063F-1587-4E43-81F1-B948E807363F"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    internal interface IMMDevice
    {
        [PreserveSig]
        int Activate(ref Guid iid, int dwClsCtx, IntPtr pActivationParams, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.IUnknown)] out object ppInterface);

        // the rest is not implemented
    }

    [Guid("77AA99A0-1BD6-484F-8BC7-2C654C9A9B6F"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    internal interface IAudioSessionManager2
    {
        int NotImpl1();
        int NotImpl2();

        [PreserveSig]
        int GetSessionEnumerator(out IAudioSessionEnumerator SessionEnum);

        // the rest is not implemented
    }

    [Guid("E2F5BB11-0570-40CA-ACDD-3AA01277DEE8"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    internal interface IAudioSessionEnumerator
    {
        [PreserveSig]
        int GetCount(out int SessionCount);

        [PreserveSig]
        int GetSession(int SessionCount, out IAudioSessionControl Session);
    }

    [Guid("F4B1A599-7266-4319-A8CA-E70ACB11E8CD"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    internal interface IAudioSessionControl
    {
        int NotImpl1();

        [PreserveSig]
        int GetDisplayName([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] out string pRetVal);

        // the rest is not implemented
    }

    [Guid("87CE5498-68D6-44E5-9215-6DA47EF883D8"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    internal interface ISimpleAudioVolume
    {
        [PreserveSig]
        int SetMasterVolume(float fLevel, ref Guid EventContext);

        [PreserveSig]
        int GetMasterVolume(out float pfLevel);

        [PreserveSig]
        int SetMute(bool bMute, ref Guid EventContext);

        [PreserveSig]
        int GetMute(out bool pbMute);
    }
}
"@;


Add-Type -TypeDefinition $def -Language CSharpVersion3
# Example usage
[SetAppVolume.AppMuter]::Mute("Mozilla Firefox");

Answer 2

I have recently enjoyed reading Feature Flags as a Service: The Only Way You Want Feature Flags that expresses my opinion neetly (I have no connection whatsoever to the team of rollout.io)

One of the great debates in the software world is that of build vs. buy. Anyone with a background in software development will tell you that the temptation to reinvent wheels is strong. Sure, any language’s standard libraries have optimized list sort functionality. But what’s the fun in that? Writing your own would be interesting and fun, and you wouldn’t have to rely on some other guy’s approach...When you build software for a living, you tend to react to obstacles by, well, building software. You do what you’re good at. This applies to individuals, and it applies to groups as a whole. But it’s important to overcome this tendency and make business decisions rather than emotional ones.

I would therefore suggest to use NirCmd's muteappvolume feature and build a small Powershell wrapper around it to suit your purposes. In my case, I have a long rain.mp3 playing with VLC without UI as a soundscape of my focus-hours — but I need to toggle mute/unmute for just this process for zooms or just listening to Annie Mac when doing mundane stuff. I toggle the mute/unmute just by pressing r in the terminal with this piece of code living in PowerShell's $profile. Again, it's not just muting, but toggling mute/unmute so I unmute doing exactly the same. No need to reinvent the wheel when such a cool tool as nircmd is readily available.

function toggleRain {
    $commandLineProperty = '"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --intf dummy c:\Users\Admin\Music\rain.mp3'
    $rainPid = (Get-Process vlc | Where-Object {$_.CommandLine -eq $commandLineProperty}).Id
    nircmd muteappvolume /$rainPid 2
}

Set-Alias r toggleRain