If you’ve ever had a pesky unwanted Apple Mac audio device that inhabits your audio device list in your DAW but can’t seem to remove it, we tell you how.

The Quick Answer

There’s a couple of places to look if you have unwanted or redundant audio devices you want to remove.

The first place is to look in Audio MIDI Setup on your Mac. Open the Audio MIDI Setup application, go to the Window Menu and select Show Audio Devices. This should list all the devices, including any Aggregate audio devices you may have created. In many cases it’s simply a case of selecting the device you want to remove and clicking on the - (minus) icon at the bottom left of the GUI.

If this doesn’t work then go to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL - in there you will find an array of devices, often virtual audio devices live here, such as Sessionwire or Telestream. To remove a device, delete it then restart your Mac.

In Depth

As outlined above, there are several places to look for and modify audio devices on a Mac.

The first place to look is using the Audio MIDI Setup app, this can be found in the /System/Applications/Utilities folder.

The Audio MIDI Setup application helps to set up and manage, as its name suggests, audio and MIDI devices on a Mac. If you can’t see the audio devices when you open it then go to the Window Menu and select Show Audio Devices. You’ll see a window like the one shown below.

Using this section of Audio MIDI Setup enables the user to add and remove devices and also to modify them. In most cases audio devices are added automatically as you add new hardward and also some software applications may add virtual audio devices here. This is also the place where you can create aggregate audio devices.

If you want to remove a device, click on it so it is highlighted and then click the minus icon in the bottom left of Audio MIDI Setup GUI. One word of advice, the minus icon may look like it’s greyed out, in many cases even though it looks greyed out, it still works, so try this first.

If this does not work then there’s the second option.

The Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)

What is the Hardware Abstraction Layer? From Apple’s Developer information: “Core Audio uses a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) to provide a consistent and predictable interface for applications to interact with hardware. The HAL can also provide timing information to your application to simplify synchronization or to adjust for latency.”

In other words there’s another place to look for what appear to be audio devices on your Mac and that’s in the HAL folder.

Go to /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL - in there you will find devices that may not remove when you try doing it using Audio MIDI Setup. Often virtual audio devices live here, such as Sessionwire or Telestream. To remove a device, delete the folder containing the content for the device you want to remove, empty the trash can and then restart your Mac.

It’s important to restart your Mac, the audio device will not disappear from your audio devices list until you have restarted your computer.

In Closing

Over time our audio devices list can get quite long as we add and remove hardware and software. In some cases this means your DAW can startup with the wrong audio device selected. This is a piece of housekeeping that can save you time in the long run.

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community, we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.