[macOS] Volume up/down keyboard shortcut doesn't work

[alexbassy]

Plan: 

Premium

Country:

Germany

Device

Macbook Pro 13-inch, 2017

Operating System

macOS 10.14.5

My Question or Issue

The volume up/down keyboard shortcuts (CMD+UP, CMD+DOWN), as well as the menu options in "Playback" have no effect. I use Spotify Connect for streaming to a speaker, and the volume slider at the bottom right is not the easiest to use, so it's quicker and easier to use the keyboard. However, these stopped working a while back.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Spotify on Mac

2. Start playing a song

3. Click Spotify Connect and start playing to a device (in my case, Sonos One)

3. Press CMD+UP or CMD+DOWN to adjust the volume, or select "Playback -> Volume Up"

Expected result:

The volume is adjusted, and the volume slider at the bottom reflects the change

Actual result:

Volume is not adjusted, slider stays at same level.

[Loxer]

Hey @alexbassy, welcome to the Community.

Hope you're doing great!

Unfortunately you can no longer change the volume from the Spotify for Mac while using Connect. You should use the system wide volume buttons to do so.

You can learn more about Spotify Connet here.

Hope it helps 🙂

[phw79]

Hi,
it doesn't work on Spotify for windows either. What are the "system wide volume buttons"? If I use the standard Windows volume up/down keys, they change the volume of my computer, but not the Spotify Connect speaker... So I can only control the volume by moving the little indicator in the bottom left corner with my mouse / touchpad.

[Alienator5000]

Control + Arrow seems to work for me?

[phw79]

@Alienator5000: Is that using a speaker on Spotify Connect?

[elipsoid]

Same issue here. When playing via Sonos speaker, the only way to control volume is using the slider. Neither keyboard shortcuts nor the menu (Playback-->Volume up/down) work. 

This must be a bug, I don't see a reason why this should not work. 

Workaround on Mac is to use Airplay to connect to the speaker, then I can use the HW keyboard keys to control the volume. Downside of that is that all audio is then played using the speaker, which is not what I want.

[18571728]

I asked a related question earlier, and then went on to create a small PoC for macOS that allows me to control the remote speakers (Beoplay) via keyboard shortcuts:

   https://github.com/tlk/beoplay-macos-remote-gui

Please note that you need Xcode 11 (beta) to build the thing.

This workaround works fine in combination with Spotify.

[Alienator5000]

@phw79

---

Nope, just regular volume buttons. It is possible the version is not optimized to the newer versions of OSX / MacBook models. I have the 2015 MacBook Pro and everything works fine here. 

[landofiz]

I previously thought Control+UP and Control+DOWN would operate the volume slider.  With the latest OS update to Catalina (Mac OSX 10.15) this is no longer the case.  CONTROL+CMD+UP and CONTROL+CMD+DOWN do work for me when using Spotify Connect to control the volume of my Sonos speakers.  Your mileage may vary, of course.  Whatever works for you, you can safely ignore the keyboard shortcut in the Playback menu.  Whatever shows there is just plain wrong. 

Yes, spotify has to have focus.  I spent some time trying to create universal keyboard shortcuts for Spotify's volume using the Keyboard system preference, but couldn't get that to work.

[phw79]

Hi, I contacted Spotify's customer support chat a while ago and reported the issue again.
Not sure if that helped. But today I tried, and the volume shortcuts work. Hopefully that's also the case for MacOS.

[b7]

I have just published a workaround for this - I now have working keyboard shortcuts from any app to change Spotify's volume when using Connect via an Automator Quick Action: https://bitbucket.org/benseven/macos-spotify-connect-volume-control

[afrodisia]

Found a simple way on Mac -this allows you to control the volume via the volume up/down keys: https://github.com/alberti42/iTunes-Volume-Control

And this allows you to use the other media keys: https://github.com/milgra/macmediakeyforwarder

and to round it off, this app gives you a floating mini player with album artwork: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/silicio-for-spotify-itunes/id933627574?mt=12

All working on Big Sur 11.1

[CraigMcArthur]

This is awesome, thanks. The first link works by setting up a service and binding a keyboard action to it and it's awesome.