How to Automatically Mute Audio When Unplugging Headphones on Windows

Wouldn’t it be great if you could automatically mute your computer’s audio output whenever you unplug your headphones? It would prevent accidentally waking up your flatmates in the small hours of the morning, or mistakenly revealing your love of Britney Spears in public.

Of course, you can mute speakers and headphones on a case-by-case basis using the Volume Mixer. (Learn more about customizing sound in Windows 10.) But honestly, there’s no need to do that when you can automate it with PowerShell.

Here’s how to automatically mute your PC’s audio when you remove the headphones, much like smartphones do.

To get started, open Notepad. Then, paste the following code into the blank document:

[cmdletbinding()]
Param()

#Adding definitions for accessing the Audio API
Add-Type -TypeDefinition @'
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
[Guid("5CDF2C82-841E-4546-9722-0CF74078229A"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
interface IAudioEndpointVolume {
// f(), g(), ... are unused COM method slots. Define these if you care
int f(); int g(); int h(); int i();
int SetMasterVolumeLevelScalar(float fLevel, System.Guid pguidEventContext);
int j();
int GetMasterVolumeLevelScalar(out float pfLevel);
int k(); int l(); int m(); int n();
int SetMute([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] bool bMute, System.Guid pguidEventContext);
int GetMute(out bool pbMute);
}
[Guid("D666063F-1587-4E43-81F1-B948E807363F"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
interface IMMDevice {
int Activate(ref System.Guid id, int clsCtx, int activationParams, out IAudioEndpointVolume aev);
}
[Guid("A95664D2-9614-4F35-A746-DE8DB63617E6"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
interface IMMDeviceEnumerator {
int f(); // Unused
int GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(int dataFlow, int role, out IMMDevice endpoint);
}
[ComImport, Guid("BCDE0395-E52F-467C-8E3D-C4579291692E")] class MMDeviceEnumeratorComObject { }
public class Audio {
static IAudioEndpointVolume Vol() {
var enumerator = new MMDeviceEnumeratorComObject() as IMMDeviceEnumerator;
IMMDevice dev = null;
Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(enumerator.GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(/*eRender*/ 0, /*eMultimedia*/ 1, out dev));
IAudioEndpointVolume epv = null;
var epvid = typeof(IAudioEndpointVolume).GUID;
Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(dev.Activate(ref epvid, /*CLSCTX_ALL*/ 23, 0, out epv));
return epv;
}
public static float Volume {
get {float v = -1; Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(Vol().GetMasterVolumeLevelScalar(out v)); return v;}
set {Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(Vol().SetMasterVolumeLevelScalar(value, System.Guid.Empty));}
}
public static bool Mute {
get { bool mute; Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(Vol().GetMute(out mute)); return mute; }
set { Marshal.ThrowExceptionForHR(Vol().SetMute(value, System.Guid.Empty)); }
}
}
'@ -Verbose


While($true)
{
#Clean all events in the current session since its in a infinite loop, to make a fresh start when loop begins
Get-Event | Remove-Event -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

#Registering the Event and Waiting for event to be triggered
Register-WmiEvent -Class Win32_DeviceChangeEvent
Wait-Event -OutVariable Event |Out-Null

$EventType = $Event.sourceargs.newevent | `
Sort-Object TIME_CREATED -Descending | `
Select-Object EventType -ExpandProperty EventType -First 1

#Conditional logic to handle, When to Mute/unMute the machine using Audio API
If($EventType -eq 3) 
{
[Audio]::Mute = $true
Write-Verbose "Muted [$((Get-Date).tostring())]"
}
elseif($EventType -eq 2 -and [Audio]::Mute -eq $true)
{
[Audio]::Mute = $false
Write-Verbose "UnMuted [$((Get-Date).tostring())]"
}
}

Now you need to save the file in the PS1 format. When you’re looking at the Save File dialogue, select All Files from the dropdown menu and call the file AutoMute.ps1. The name of the file itself is not important, so just choose something that’s easy to remember.

To activate the script, right-click on the newly created file and select Run. The script will be active until you turn off your machine.

This is just one of many ways PowerShell can boost your productivity. There are lots of PowerShell cmdlets that’ll improve your Windows experience.

Image Credit: peus/Depositphotos

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