How can I mute the Mac sound before a break, then restore the volume afterwards?

A customer said that they play music via YouTube, and wanted to silence it during their breaks. Time Out is very flexible, so I was able to come up with a solution for them, using Automator workflows as Break Actions.

I created three workflows, that you can download from the Script Actions section of the Time Out Extras page. Here are direct download links for your convenience:

Volume 25% — sets the Mac system volume to quarter level

Volume 50% — sets the volume to halfway

Volume Muted — mutes the sound

You can of course edit these in Apple’s Automator app to choose different volume levels.

To install them, choose Reveal Scripts from the + menu on the Break Actions page in Time Out:

Then decompress those actions and add to the revealed folder in the Finder. They will then appear in that menu so you can use them with a break.

Here’s a fancy example, where Time Out will flash the screen 10 seconds before a break is due, play a bell sound 5 seconds before the break is due, mute the volume once the break fades in, set the sound volume back to 25% level once the break ends (whether done, postponed, or skipped), and finally play a different bell sound 1 second after it is done (but won’t play if postponed or skipped):

I hope you find this helpful.