How to Play Music on Microsoft Teams on Mac

You are on a Teams call and want to play a song, a sound clip, or any audio for the people on the call. You check the audio settings, look for something like “include computer sound,” and find nothing useful outside of a screen share. Microsoft Teams on Mac handles audio differently than its Windows version, and the gap is real.

Here is how to actually share audio on Teams without sharing your screen.

Why Teams Does Not Share Audio by Default

Teams on Mac listens only to your microphone. Your system audio (music, video, browser sound) plays through your speakers or headphones, and Teams has no access to it.

Teams does have a “Include computer sound” checkbox when you start a screen share. This routes system audio through the call, but it requires sharing your screen, and it depends on macOS screen capture APIs that behave inconsistently on macOS 13 Ventura and macOS 14 Sonoma.

The cleanest solution does not use screen sharing at all.

The Fix: Route System Audio as a Microphone

A virtual audio driver creates a new microphone input on your Mac that captures system audio instead of picking up sounds from a physical mic. Teams sees it as a normal microphone and sends that audio to everyone on the call.

Method 1: Soundshine (30 Seconds, $7.99)

Soundshine is a Mac menu bar app that installs a lightweight virtual audio driver. When active, it captures your Mac’s system audio and makes it available as “Soundshine Microphone” in any app.

1. Download and install Soundshine
2. Click the menu bar icon and toggle it on
3. Open Teams and go to Settings (your profile picture, then Settings)
4. Click Devices
5. Under Microphone, select “Soundshine Microphone”
6. Play music or any audio. Everyone on the call hears it.

One setting to check: Teams noise suppression. Teams tries to filter background noise, and it may identify music as noise. In the same Devices settings, look for Noise suppression and set it to Off or Low when you want to share audio.

To go back to your real microphone, select it in Teams Devices settings and toggle Soundshine off.

Method 2: BlackHole (Free)

BlackHole is a free, open-source virtual audio driver that accomplishes the same thing with more setup.

1. Install BlackHole 2ch from existential.audio
2. Open Audio MIDI Setup (Applications, Utilities)
3. Create a Multi-Output Device combining BlackHole and your regular speakers
4. Set your Mac’s system audio output to that Multi-Output Device
5. In Teams Devices settings, select BlackHole 2ch as your microphone

The tradeoff: with a Multi-Output Device as your system output, your volume keys stop controlling speaker volume. You adjust it in Sound settings instead. It also takes roughly 20 to 30 steps to configure. Once done, it works reliably.

Method 3: Teams Screen Share With Computer Sound

If showing your screen is fine, no extra software needed.

1. Click Share in Teams
2. Toggle on “Include computer sound” in the share dialog
3. Select the window or screen to share
4. Play audio

This only shares audio while screen sharing is active. Audio quality can vary, and the feature behaves inconsistently on Sonoma. It works for quick demos but is not reliable for longer audio sharing sessions.

Which to Use

For regular audio sharing on Teams calls, Soundshine is the cleanest option. The toggle is fast enough to flip on for a single song and off when you want your real microphone back.

For a free solution with some patience for setup, BlackHole works.

If you are already screen sharing, Teams’ built-in option is the simplest path.

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Download Soundshine free and test it before buying. Setup takes about 30 seconds. If it works for your Teams calls, the full version is $7.99 one-time.

The same setup works for Zoom, Discord, Google Meet, and FaceTime.