Can’t Turn Up the Volume on Your MacBook? Here’s a Quick Fix to Try

Imagine that you’re working from home on your MacBook or trying to get some study time in – so you launch the Music app on your laptop, hoping to rock out to something that will help you focus. The app says the song is playing, but you don’t hear anything. So you press the volume up key only to discover volume adjustments are locked! What the heck?

Don’t worry; there’s a simple fix for this so you can get your music bumping faster than you can say B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

The problem here is likely your external monitor.

Your MacBook might be duped into thinking that your external monitor has speakers – and likely, it doesn’t. It’s an odd scenario.

In any case, you’ll have to redirect the audio output to your MacBook’s internal speakers or something else. Problem solved!

Here’s how you can fix this volume issue easily:

How to Fix Locked MacBook Volume Keys

1. Find the Menu Bar at the top of the screen.
2. On the right, you should see the button for the Control Center. (It looks like on/off switches.)
3. Open the Control Center and find the section labeled Sound.
4. Tap the AirPlay button next to the volume slider.
5. On the following screen, you might see your external monitor selected.
6. Choose Internal Speakers or another set of speakers that you’d like to use.

That was easy! Hopefully, this solution worked for you. But, if you’re not using an external monitor, and you’re still facing a similar situation, there are other fixes you can try listed on Apple’s Support Community forum.

If those solutions don’t work, you might have faulty butterfly keys, which Apple may replace at little or no cost. Good luck and thanks for reading!