Fix Mac Audio Stuck in Call Mode

Sometimes your Mac audio just... breaks. Sound gets muffled, tinny, or stuck in some low-quality mono mode. Volume controls feel wrong. Bluetooth headphones sound like a phone call from 2008.

It happens randomly — after a call ends, after unplugging headphones, after waking from sleep. The system thinks it's still in a call and routes audio through the narrow-band codec.

The fix

Kill the audio daemons. They'll respawn clean.

sudo killall coreaudiod
sudo killall avconferenced

That's it. coreaudiod is the core audio daemon — killing it forces macOS to re-initialize all audio routing. avconferenced handles AV conferencing state; killing it clears the "in a call" lock.

Both are managed by launchd, so they respawn within a second. No restart needed.

If that doesn't work

Nuclear option — force-restart CoreAudio through launchd:

sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/com.apple.audio.coreaudiod

The -k flag kills the existing process before restarting it. This is the most aggressive reset you can do without a reboot.

Bookmark it. You might need it again.