Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Mute the System Volume in Windows
Have you ever had music playing loudly on your speakers when the phone rings… then you fumble for the speaker switch or the pause button on your music playing application while trying to answer the phone? Instead of bothering with that, I've always simply created a shortcut to mute the system volume instantly with the press of a key.
Of course this isn't terribly helpful if you have a multimedia keyboard with a mute button onboard, but some computers just don't have one, or you don't want to run the software required to make the keys work.
Create the Shortcut
In order to mute the system volume, we'll use a small utility called NirCmd that we've mentioned numerous times before, since it's the swiss army knife of useful shortcuts.
Right-click on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.
In the location box, you'll want to browse down to the location of where you saved nircmd.exe, and then add "mutesysvolume 2″ as arguments. You'll probably want to put quotes around the path to the executable, like this:
"C:\Path\To\nircmd.exe" mutesysvolume 2
Note: the "2″ argument tells nircmd to toggle mute, so if you use the shortcut or hotkey again, it will untoggle. I find that to be the most useful, but you could pass an argument of "1″ to only use mute. All of the arguments can be found on the NirCmd page.
Give the shortcut a useful name like "Toggle Mute", and then open up the properties of the shortcut. Here you can assign a shortcut key, or you can change the icon to something else.
I found the speaker icon in the following file, but you can choose another icon if you'd like:
%SystemRoot%\System32\SndVol.exe
Remember when using a shortcut key, you'll want to keep the shortcut on the desktop or move it into the Start menu… the shortcut keys don't seem to work when the shortcut is in the quick launch menu.
Either way, you should now have a shiny new shortcut that will mute or unmute the system volume.
This is something I can really use at work. Thanks for another great tip.
you come up with the best shortcuts.
nice, but what about for Vista?
Does this work in XP or just Vista?
This should work in either XP or Vista.
Although all your tips and How-to's are always clearly documented, sometimes it is the simple tips that catch the eye.
Mission easily accomplished.
Thank you,
Corrine
Is there a way to Mute UnMute the microphone. This is great but turning off your mic would be even better.
Brilliant idea!
How do you create a hotkey though?
good work .. lot of times i saw only commands for this and that but no practical use , so it's really good to see your articles
@Jan Glas
If you check the detailed help page for NirCmd:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd2.html
and search for the term (remove the quotes):
"mutesysvolume [action] {Component} {Device Index}"
the description says that a parameter can be included to designate the item to be muted. It mentions "microphone" as one option.
For myself, I'd prefer to also have a visible reminder as to whether the microphone is muted (to avoid embarrassing and/or costly mistakes). Perhaps someone else might have a suggestion regarding that.
Thanks to this website for the great tip. I'd seen NirCmd but not investigated nor considered using it with shortcuts like this.
Regards
@jim
To make it a hotkey:
right-click the shortcut. click properties.
In the shortcut tab you will see "Shortcut Key". Enter a key to use.