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I tried several combinations, but I have not found any way so far to mute audio (playing in any application, system wide) using a normal PC-Keyboard (Cherry G80) connected to my Mac Book Pro (2011).

On the built-in keyboard of the MacBook Pro this is simply done by pressing F10 (or Fn-F10, depending on the Pref settings).

I would like to get the Fn+F10 functionality working on the external keyboard. Apparently Apple keyboards have an explicit Fn key and there is seems to work.

What I tried is:

  • I remapped the Windows Menu key (Application key) to Fn using KeyRemap4MacBook
  • I made it so that F10 does not show the current Application Window, so F10 is free
  • Still, when I press F10 or Fn+F10 on the extrenal keyboard, nothing happens

To me it seems that the audio mute functionality is pretty low level in the keyboard stack.

Any thoughts welcome.

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  • Installing Karabiner (instead of KeyRemap2Macbook) solves this problem by explicitly supporting Fn+F10/F11/F12 to control the audio settings. Exactly what I want.
    – Johannes Overmann
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 15:18

2 Answers 2

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Two options: (1) using Karabiner (formerly KeyRemap4Macbook) which you already have installed, or (2) using BetterTouchTool which allows more flexible remapping.

Maybe you have an older version without this capability, but update to the latest version of Karabiner and you will see an "F10 to Volume Mute" remap option.

Karabiner screenshot

For this problem, BetterTouchTool also works well. Although it's primarily focused on mapping trackpad gestures to various actions, it also allows remapping of keyboard keys. This is a bit more flexible than Karabiner for this example, since it doesn't require the exact preset you want to already exist.

BetterTouchTool screenshot

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  • Thanks a lot! Installing Karabiner seems to solve all my problems. Not only can I map F10 to mute, I can also now map Fn+F10/F11/F12 to the audio functions and this works with using the strange Windows Menu key as Fn 'Application Key to Fn'.
    – Johannes Overmann
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 15:15
  • I did try to update KeyRemap2Macbook by clicking the 'check for updates' button, but probably because of the renaming it did not find anything. Karabiner seems to have advanced a lot.
    – Johannes Overmann
    Commented Oct 28, 2015 at 15:16
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The only thing I could think of is making two services (mute + unmute) through Automator and then assigning these services to two different shortcuts from the settings panel.

  • First open Automator and choose service, then add a shell from the actions menu
  • Next write the shell script to mute/unmute and save them

To mute : osascript -e "set volume with output muted"

To unmute : osascript -e "set volume without output muted"

enter image description here

  • Finally go to Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services, find the two services you created and assign the shortcut you want. enter image description here
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