Mac Audio Crackling or Popping? Here's How to Fix It

You’re three minutes into a Zoom call and a sharp pop crackles through your speakers. Then another. Then the audio sounds like it’s underwater for a second before snapping back. Maddening — and almost always fixable in software, even though it sounds like a hardware problem.

Mac audio crackling shows up in a few flavors: clicks during music playback, pops when audio starts or stops, distortion on calls, or a constant low-level hiss. The cause is rarely the speakers themselves. It’s usually a sample rate mismatch, a confused audio daemon, or a Bluetooth codec dropping frames.

Here’s the order to try fixes in — start at the top and stop when the crackling does.

Check what’s actually playing first

Before you do anything else, swap to a different source. If Apple Music crackles but a YouTube video in Safari doesn’t, the problem is the source — not your Mac. Try:

• A built-in macOS sound (System Settings → Sound → Sound Effects and click any alert sound)
• A different streaming app
• A local file you’ve had for a while

If the system alert beep crackles, it’s definitely your Mac. If only one app does it, the fix is different (usually clearing that app’s cache or reinstalling).

Match your sample rate

This fixes maybe 40% of crackling cases on Macs that haven’t been touched in a while. macOS routes audio at a specific sample rate, and if it doesn’t match what your output device wants, you get clicks and dropouts.

Open Applications → Utilities → Audio MIDI Setup. Pick your output device in the left sidebar (built-in speakers, headphones, or USB interface). Look at the Format dropdown.

Set it to 48000 Hz for most modern Macs and 2 channels at 24-bit Integer. If it’s already set to 48 kHz, try 44.1 kHz instead. The wrong sample rate causes resampling, and bad resampling crackles.

If you have an external DAC or audio interface, check what sample rate the device manufacturer recommends — some studio interfaces want 96 kHz.

Reset stale audio configsCorrupted prefs cause weird sound issues. Sweep can wipe them. Try Sweep free →

Reset the Core Audio daemon

Core Audio is the macOS process that handles every sound your Mac makes. When it gets confused — usually after waking from sleep or unplugging a USB device mid-playback — it can produce continuous crackling until you restart it.

Open Terminal and run:

sudo killall coreaudiod

Type your admin password. The daemon restarts automatically within a second or two. You’ll hear a quick silence, then audio resumes — usually crackle-free.

This is non-destructive. It just kicks the audio system into a fresh state. If it works, your problem was a stuck daemon, not corrupted files. If it comes back, something is causing the daemon to drift again.

Bluetooth crackling is its own beast

If the crackling is on AirPods, Sony headphones, or any Bluetooth output, the cause is almost always interference or a codec mismatch. Try these in order:

Move closer to your Mac. Bluetooth has a real-world range of about 10 feet through walls and 30 feet line-of-sight. Walk over to your Mac. If the crackling stops, distance was the issue.

Turn off other Bluetooth devices. Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, smart watches, and even nearby phones can step on the audio stream. Unpair temporarily and listen.

Check your Wi-Fi band. 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi shares spectrum with Bluetooth. Switch your Mac to a 5 GHz network if your router supports it. System Settings → Wi-Fi → Details → click Forget on the 2.4 GHz network if you’ve connected to both.

Forget and re-pair. Go to System Settings → Bluetooth, click the (i) next to your headphones, and choose Forget Device. Then put them back in pairing mode and reconnect. This clears the stored codec preferences and lets your Mac negotiate fresh.

Clear app-specific audio caches

If the crackling is only in one app — Spotify, Logic, GarageBand, OBS — the app’s audio cache is probably corrupted. Each app stores temporary audio data and preferences, and these files can get scrambled.

For most apps, the fix is:

1. Quit the app completely (Cmd+Q, then check Activity Monitor to make sure it’s not still running)
2. Delete the app’s cache folder at ~/Library/Caches/[app bundle ID]/
3. Delete its preferences plist at ~/Library/Preferences/[bundle ID].plist
4. Reopen the app — it’ll rebuild fresh files

This is tedious by hand because you have to find the right bundle IDs. A cleaning tool that knows where each app stores its junk can do it in one pass.

Skip the manual huntSweep clears stale audio prefs and caches that often cause oddities. Download Sweep free →

Sweep clears corrupted audio caches and resets stale prefs that are common culprits for crackling. It won’t fix broken speakers or a damaged headphone jack — those need hardware repair — but it will clean out the software gunk that builds up over months of use.

Check for runaway processes

Sometimes audio crackling is actually CPU starvation in disguise. If a process is hogging your cores, the audio buffer underruns and you get pops.

Open Activity Monitor (Applications → Utilities). Sort by CPU %. If anything is using more than 80% sustained, that’s a candidate. Common offenders:

• mds_stores — Spotlight indexing, runs after big file changes; usually finishes in 20-30 minutes
• Photos Agent — face/scene analysis; runs in the background after importing
• kernel_task — high values usually mean thermal throttling
• A specific browser tab — bad ad scripts can chew CPU

Quit what you can. Wait for indexing to finish. If kernel_task is at 200%+, your Mac is overheating — clean the vents, get it off the bed/couch, and check your fans.

Update macOS and audio drivers

If you’re on macOS 14.0 or 14.1, update to 14.4 or later. Sonoma had several audio bugs in its early releases that Apple patched silently. Open System Settings → General → Software Update.

If you use a third-party audio interface (Focusrite Scarlett, Universal Audio, RME), check the manufacturer’s site for driver updates. Apple Silicon Macs need ARM-native drivers — Intel-only drivers run through Rosetta and can crackle under load.

When it’s actually hardware

If you’ve tried everything and it still crackles:

• Built-in speakers crackling at high volume only: blown driver, needs Genius Bar
• Crackles on every output, including headphones: logic board audio chip issue
• Crackles only on the headphone jack: dirty or damaged jack — try compressed air, then service if no improvement
• Crackles only on one specific Bluetooth device: the device, not the Mac

Apple’s hardware diagnostic doesn’t catch most audio chip issues, so don’t trust a clean diagnostic as proof your hardware is fine. If the software fixes don’t work, get it looked at.

Quick checklist

Run through this in order, stop when the crackling does:

1. Test with a system alert sound to confirm the issue is your Mac
2. Audio MIDI Setup → set output to 48 kHz, 24-bit, 2 channels
3. sudo killall coreaudiod to reset the audio daemon
4. For Bluetooth: move closer, kill other BT devices, forget and re-pair
5. Clear caches for any app that crackles in isolation
6. Check Activity Monitor for runaway CPU
7. Update macOS to the latest 14.x release
8. Update third-party audio drivers
9. If all else fails, hardware diagnostic + service

Most Mac audio crackling has a software cause and a software fix. The diagnostic order matters because each step rules something out — don’t skip ahead, or you’ll be guessing.