How to assign a background sound to every app on your iPhone to set the mood

You can play background sounds on your iPhone to help you focus, stay calm, or fall asleep, giving you a personal sound machine wherever you go. What’s more, there’s a way to set each of your apps to automatically play one of Apple’s six soundscapes. When you open an app, the sound assigned to it plays, then it stops when you exit the app or switch to another app.

While iOS 15 and iOS 16 have Per-App Settings, you won’t find any background sounds there. Instead, you will need to create an automation in the labels, and there are several ways to do this. None of them are perfect solutions, so they are more like “hacks”that can be used until something better comes along.

Step 1: Create a New Automation

First, open Shortcuts, tap the Automation tab, and click the blue Create Personal Automation button. If you already have one or more saved automations, tap the plus (+) icon in the top right corner to find the Create Personal Automation button.

Step 2: Select Apps for Sound

Select “App”from the list, press “Select”and highlight the desired app or apps. There is no need to create automation for each application. Instead, you create one for each combination of background sound and volume, so select all the apps you want for the sound and volume level you want to adjust first. You can edit them later to add more apps, remove apps, or change the volume level.

Click “Done”when you’re done checking your apps.

Step 3: choose the right shortcut

As I said, there are several ways to create a shortcut that plays a background sound when you open an app and stops it when you exit. I’ll give you two options using “Automate”below and one using the regular shortcut, but if you know a better way, let us know!

Note. When setting “Background Sound”you have six options:

• Balanced Noise
• bright noise
• dark noise
• Ocean
• Rain
• Creek

To help save you time, all of the options below include a shortcut link that you can add to your shortcut library. This way you don’t have to follow every step. To automate, simply add an Execute Shortcut action and select the downloaded shortcut instead of other actions.

Option 1: Toggle background audio

The easiest way is to turn Background Sounds on and off whenever the selected app is opened and closed. This works like a charm if you are not already playing any background sounds. If so, it will mute the app when you open it and unmute it when you exit. To avoid this, try Option 2 below.

Instead of creating all the automation, you can install our “Toggle Background Sound “shortcut and then select the sound and volume levels during setup. Then just add the Run Shortcut action and select the Toggle Background Sound shortcut instead of the other actions (steps 3-11 below).

1. Select “Open”and “Closed”in the New Animation window.
2. Click next.
3. Add “Set Background Sounds”in the “Actions”window.
4. Click “Rotate”in this action and choose “Toggle”instead.
5. Add another action for “Change background sound”.
6. Tap the current background sound in this activity if it’s not the one you want and choose another one.
7. Add another action for “Set volume of background sounds”. (It’s not obligatory.)
8. Tap the current percentage for “Volume”in this action and select the desired volume level.
9. Add another action for “Set volume of background sounds”. (It’s not obligatory.)
10. Click “Volume”and change it to “Volume when playing media”.
11. Touch the current percentage for this and select the desired volume level.
12. Click “Next”in the upper right corner.
13. Disable “Ask before launch”and “Notify at startup”.
14. Click “Done”to save.

Option 2: Turn background sound on or off.

This requires two separate automations, one to start a background sound when the app is opened, and another to disable background sounds when the app is closed. This is by far the best option on this list, only it takes longer to set up than option 1.

Instead of building all the “Open”automation, you can install our “Enable Background Sound “shortcut and then select sound and volume levels during installation. Then just add the Run Shortcut action and select the Toggle Background Sound shortcut instead of the other actions (steps 3-11 below).

1. Select Open in the New Animation window.
2. Click next.
3. Add “Set Background Sounds”in the “Actions”window.
4. Make sure the action says “Enable background sounds”, which is the default.
5. Add another action for “Change background sound”.
6. Tap the current background sound in this activity if it’s not the one you want and choose another one.
7. Add another action for “Set volume of background sounds”. (It’s not obligatory.)
8. Tap the current percentage for “Volume”in this action and select the desired volume level.
9. Add another action for “Set volume of background sounds”. (It’s not obligatory.)
10. Click “Volume”and change it to “Volume when playing media”.
11. Touch the current percentage for this and select the desired volume level.
12. Click “Next”in the upper right corner.
13. Disable “Ask before launch”and “Notify at startup”.
14. Click “Done”to save.

Automating turning off “Background Sounds”has become easier. If you don’t mind manually turning off “Background Sounds”all the time, you can skip these “Closed”instructions.

Instead of creating all “Closed”automation, you can install our Mute Background Sound shortcut. Then just add the Run Shortcut action and select the Toggle Background Sound shortcut instead of other actions (steps 3-4 below).

1. Select Closed in the New Animation window.
2. Click next.
3. Add “Set Background Sounds”in the “Actions”window.
4. Tap “On”to toggle it to “Off”so it says “Mute background sounds”.
5. Click “Next”in the upper right corner.
6. Disable “Ask before launch”and “Notify at startup”.
7. Click “Done”to save.

Option 3: Create a Home Screen Shortcut

This option will only turn Background Sounds on at the sound level and volume you want when you open a shortcut on the home screen or via Siri.

There are several downsides. First, it will keep playing the sound when you exit the app. To fix this, you need to set up “off”automation as shown in option 2 above. Secondly, you need to create a shortcut for each application that you want to associate with background audio. And third, it will only work from the home screen or via Siri.

Instead of creating all the automation, you can install the “Background Audio Bookmark “shortcut and then select the app, sound, and volume levels during installation. Then just add the Run Shortcut action and select the Toggle Background Sound shortcut instead of the other actions (steps 5-15 below).

1. Skip steps 1-3 above and go to My Shortcuts in the Shortcuts app.
2. Start a new shortcut.
3. Give it the name of the application you are linking.
4. Add your own app icon if you like. (It’s not obligatory.)
5. Add an “Open Application”action.
6. Click “App”in this activity and select the desired app.
7. Add “Set Background Sounds”.
8. Make sure the action says “Enable background sounds”, which is the default.
9. Add another action for “Change background sound”.
10. Tap the current background sound in this activity if it’s not the one you want and choose another one.
11. Add another action for “Set volume of background sounds”. (It’s not obligatory.)
12. Tap the current percentage for “Volume”in this action and select the desired volume level.
13. Add another action for “Set volume of background sounds”. (It’s not obligatory.)
14. Click “Volume”and change it to “Volume when playing media”.
15. Touch the current percentage for this and select the desired volume level.
16. Tap the “Settings”button at the top right (iOS 15) or the info button (i) at the bottom (iOS 16), then “Add to Home Screen”and “Add”. (You can add a custom app icon now if you haven’t already and want one.)
17. Click “Done”, then the X button in the upper right corner.

You can use applications like ToolBox Pro to develop more advanced automation, but ToolBox Pro’s Play Sound? » cannot distinguish between multimedia and background sounds.

In an ideal world, Apple or Toolbox Pro would have a Play Background Sounds or Detect Background Sounds action. That being said, you can add an “if”statement at the beginning of option 1 above, which changes the background sound when the background sound is already playing. So it won’t disable “Background Sounds”if it’s already enabled. Perhaps one day.