Disable Skype Auto Mic Adjustment On Mac

30 Mar 2011

If you have ever been frustrated with Skype automatically changed the input volume for your microphone you can turn it off.

For Skype versions prior to 5 there is this blog post on how to do it http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20081116113445565

For Skype version 5…

Open up the file found at ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/shared.xml

At the bottom of the file you should see something like

<VoiceEng>
  <MicBoost>
    <_260>-1</_260>
  </MicBoost>
  <MicVolume>
    <_260>73</_260>
    <AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C0.3A1>81</AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C0.3A1>
    <AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C1.3A2>100</AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C1.3A2>
  </MicVolume>
  <SpeakerVolume>68</SpeakerVolume>
</VoiceEng>

Change the value inside of the ‘MicBoost’ and _260 blocks to 0 and that should turn the auto adjusting off.

I also changed the volume to 100 so it is all the way up so I can control the input from my system preferences. In the end yours should end up looking something like this

<VoiceEng>
  <MicBoost>
    <_260>0</_260>
  </MicBoost>
  <MicVolume>
    <_260>100</_260>
    <AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C0.3A1>63</AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C0.3A1>
    <AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C1.3A2>100</AppleHDAEngineInput.3A8.2C0.2C1.2C1.3A2>
  </MicVolume>
  <SpeakerVolume>68</SpeakerVolume>
</VoiceEng>