Mute Your Computer on a Schedule with SoundAsleep [Featured Mac Download]

Category: Science/Tech | Posted by laraib 1410 days ago

Mac OS X only: If you're the type to leave your computer on overnight—say to complete a big BitTorrent download or something along those lines—you may also have been woken up by an unexpected beep from that always-on Mac. Freeware application SoundAsleep sets up a mute schedule for your Mac, muting and unmuting the system sound at times you specify. It does one simple thing, so whether you're using it for a quiet computer at night or you just have a quiet schedule you'd like to keep up with, the freeware, Mac OS X only SoundAsleep is there for you. Now if only the same functionality were available for our cell phones.I actually had trouble getting this application to work correctly when testing it (i.e., it didn't mute for me), but since I really like the idea, I decided to round up a couple other ways you could go about accomplishing this (as suggested in the comments at TUAW).

First, using previously mentioned application MarcoPolo, you can set up rules to perform time-based actions, so muting and unmuting your computer on a schedule should be simple. MarcoPolo has a ton of other functionality, though, and unless you're planning to use it for more than just muting, it may be overkill.

Another reader suggests making an AppleScript that runs on a schedule with iCal. An AppleScript to mute the volume looks like:

set volume 0

...and an AppleScript to unmute the volume might look like:

set volume 5

...where 5 is 50% of your volume.

There are a bevy of other ways you could probably set up this sort of functionality, though SoundAsleep, if working properly, seems like the most simple. If you have more luck than I did with SoundAsleep, let us know in the comments.

SoundAsleep [via TUAW]