How to Play Music for Friends on Discord on Mac

You’re hanging out with friends in a Discord voice channel, someone asks you to play a song, and you realize there’s no way to do it. You can talk into your mic, but Discord on Mac has no built-in option to share your system audio. No Spotify playback, no YouTube clips, no Apple Music. Just your voice and whatever your microphone picks up from your laptop speakers (which sounds terrible).

This is one of the most common frustrations for Mac users on Discord. On Windows, some apps can capture desktop audio directly. On macOS, that option simply doesn’t exist without extra tools. Let’s break down why, and then walk through the actual solutions.

Why Discord Can’t Play Your Music on Mac

The root cause is macOS itself. Apple’s audio system only exposes microphone inputs to apps like Discord. Your system audio (everything playing through your speakers or headphones) lives on a separate output bus that third-party apps can’t tap into as an input source.

So when you open Discord’s voice settings and look at the input device dropdown, you’ll see your built-in microphone, maybe an external USB mic, but nothing that represents “what’s playing on my Mac right now.”

Discord isn’t doing anything wrong here. It’s asking macOS for a list of audio input devices, and macOS simply doesn’t include system audio as one of them. This is a system-level limitation, not a Discord bug.

Solution 1: Discord Music Bots

The most popular workaround is adding a music bot to your Discord server. Bots like Jockie Music or Chip run on remote servers and stream audio directly into a voice channel. You send a command like /play followed by a song name or URL, and the bot joins the channel and plays it.

Pros:

No software to install on your Mac
Everyone in the channel hears the same thing
Works on any operating system

Cons:

Most bots only support a limited set of sources (YouTube, SoundCloud, sometimes Spotify links that get rerouted)
Audio quality varies and depends on the bot’s servers
You can’t share audio from arbitrary apps or sources on your Mac
Bots can go offline, get rate-limited, or lose support for specific platforms
You don’t control the mix. If you want to talk over the music, DJ-style, that’s not really possible

Music bots work fine for casual listening sessions. But if you want to share a specific mix, play audio from any app on your Mac, or layer your voice over the music, you need something different.

Solution 2: Virtual Audio Cable (the Real Fix)

The proper solution is to create a virtual audio device on your Mac that takes your system audio and presents it as a microphone input. Discord then sees this virtual mic in its input device list and captures whatever your Mac is playing.

This is called a “virtual audio cable” approach. It works with every audio source on your Mac, whether that’s Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube in a browser, game audio, or anything else that makes sound.

How to Set This Up with Soundshine

Soundshine is a macOS menu bar app that does exactly this. It installs a lightweight audio driver, creates a virtual microphone, and routes your system audio to it. You can still hear everything through your own speakers while the audio is simultaneously sent to the virtual mic.

Here’s how to get music playing through Discord:

Install Soundshine. The app walks you through a guided setup that installs the audio driver. It takes about 30 seconds.
Turn on audio routing. Click the Soundshine icon in your menu bar and flip the routing toggle to “on.” Your system audio is now being routed to the virtual microphone.
Set Discord’s input device. Open Discord, go to Settings, then Voice & Video. Under “Input Device,” select “Soundshine Microphone” from the dropdown.
Play your music. Open Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or whatever you want to share. Your friends will hear it in the voice channel.

That’s it. Four steps and you’re DJing for your friends.

A Few Useful Details

You still hear your own audio. Soundshine passes audio through to your speakers or headphones with zero latency. The volume keys on your Mac keep working normally, and there’s a separate passthrough volume slider in the menu bar so you can adjust your local playback without affecting what your friends hear.

Your mic and system audio. If you want your friends to hear both your voice and the music, you can use Discord’s “noise suppression” settings to fine-tune what gets picked up. Some users run their voice through a separate mic channel while Soundshine handles the music feed.

It works with any app. Because Soundshine captures all system audio at the driver level, it doesn’t matter where the sound is coming from. Browser tabs, desktop apps, games, notification sounds. If your Mac plays it, Soundshine can route it.

Which Solution Should You Use?

If you just want to queue up some YouTube links for friends and don’t care about full control, a Discord music bot is the fastest option. No setup on your end.

If you want to share audio from any source on your Mac, control the mix, play from Spotify or Apple Music directly, or share game audio during a session, a virtual audio cable approach is the way to go. Soundshine makes the setup trivial: install, toggle, select the mic in Discord, and play.

Quick Troubleshooting

Friends can’t hear anything: Double-check that Discord’s input device is set to “Soundshine Microphone,” not your default mic. Also make sure the routing toggle in Soundshine is turned on.

Audio sounds distorted or too loud: Lower the volume of whatever app is playing the music. The audio level meter in Soundshine’s menu bar shows you the signal strength in real time, so you can dial it in.

You can’t hear your own audio: Make sure your Mac’s output device is still set to your speakers or headphones, not the Soundshine device. Soundshine handles the passthrough automatically, but if your output device got switched, you’ll need to set it back in System Settings > Sound.

Now go be the DJ your Discord server deserves.