Airfoil 5.13.0 — Mac version

Airfoil is a Mac app that sends any audio playing on your computer to wireless speakers and devices around your home.

Pull audio from any app, browser, or player on your Mac

It works at system level, so you are not limited to one music player. Grab sound from a web browser, a radio app, or anything else that makes noise and pipe it where you want.

Can I tweak the sound before it leaves the Mac?

There is a built-in equalizer. You can bump the bass for a kitchen speaker or cut the treble on an older hi-fi to stop the cymbals sounding harsh.

What if the audio source is on a different Mac?

The free Airfoil Satellite companion app turns other computers and iOS devices into receivers or remote controls. Start and stop the stream from the sofa without touching the main Mac.

Does it get out of the way when I just want to listen?

It can be set to start streaming to a chosen device automatically on launch. Open the app, and the music starts in the right room with no extra clicking.

Set it to auto-transmit to a default speaker on launch

The defaults work, but a couple of tweaks make life easier. Open preferences and look under Transmission. Tick Automatically transmit on launch and pick a speaker from the dropdown. Next time you open the app, audio hits the kitchen or workshop without a single click.

While you are there, check Audio Device. If you use an external DAC or a USB headset, Airfoil can grab audio from that specific device rather than the system default. Handy when the Mac feeds a mixer and you want only one app’s output sent wirelessly.

Under the hood, Airfoil encodes everything as Apple Lossless. There is no quality slider to fuss with — you get the same stream regardless of which device you pick. The one thing worth watching is the sync adjustment slider. If a Bluetooth speaker lags behind an AirPlay one in the next room, drag the slider a few ticks left to pull them closer together. It is not sample-accurate, but it stops that slapback echo that drives you up the wall.

A radio producer’s setup

Consider someone running a small internet radio station from a spare bedroom. The main Mac handles the broadcast encoder, playlist software and a browser-based mixing desk. They want to monitor the outgoing stream in the living room without running cables through the hallway.

With Airfoil, they set the source to the mixing desk app. That stream goes to an old AirPort Express hooked up to powered monitors in the living room. At the same time, they fire up Airfoil Satellite on an iPhone tucked in a kitchen dock — a second monitoring point that costs nothing to add. The equalizer gets a slight midrange push so speech cuts through background noise while they make lunch. No extra soundcard, no long cable runs, just a Mac doing what it was already doing, heard in two more rooms.

System Audio source sends every ping and alert to all your speakers

The most common stumbles are easy to avoid once you know about them.

• Sending system alerts to every speaker. When you set the source to System Audio, every ping, bleep and email notification gets broadcast to the whole house. Pick a specific application as the source unless you genuinely want the Mac’s error sounds competing with your playlist.
• Forgetting the mute button on the remote device. Airfoil Satellite on an iPhone or iPad can control playback, but it also has a mute toggle. People hit it by accident, then wonder why the kitchen is silent while the living room is shaking. Check Satellite first before fiddling with cables.
• Assuming all devices play in perfect sync. AirPlay, Google Cast and Bluetooth all have different latencies. Sending the same stream to a HomePod and a Bluetooth speaker at once usually produces a slight offset. The sync slider helps, but for critical listening, stick to one protocol per group of rooms.
• Closing the app instead of stopping the stream. Clicking the red traffic-light button hides the window but keeps audio flowing. To actually cut the stream, click the Stop button or quit from the menu bar icon. Otherwise you might return an hour later to find music still pumping through an empty room.

Some folks hunt around for an airfoil torrent or airfoil crack to try before committing. The version that ends up on those sites may be missing its code signature, which means Gatekeeper will need a quick trip to Security & Privacy to allow it, and you'll want to check that the Apple TV streaming fix from 5.13 is present. If you're keen on getting the restored HomePod and Apple TV support working properly, just verify the build number before installing. The same goes for anyone searching Airfoil cracked Mac — the cracked builds floating about tend to be older revisions where that feature was still broken.

• Restores audio streaming to Apple TV and HomePod devices.

• macOS 14.4 or newer
• Apple silicon or Intel 64-bit Mac