Joe Maring / Android Authority
Modern Samsung phones are packed with features — more so than practically any other Android brand. That’s obviously great if you like to tinker with and get the most out of your phone, but with so many tools at your disposal, it’s only natural to have some of them fall through the cracks.
This was the case with Samsung’s hidden Wi-Fi menu we highlighted a few months ago, and we’ve also now stumbled across a little-known audio feature that’s arguably even cooler. It’s called “Separate App Sound,” and if you aren’t using it now, you’ll absolutely want to. Here’s how it works.
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How to use Separate App Sound on your Samsung phone
Lanh Nguyen / Android Authority
In short, Separate App Sound does exactly what the name implies — it allows you to play audio from specific apps through different audio sources. For example, if you want YouTube Music to play through your Bluetooth speaker while notification alerts and other sounds still play through your phone’s speaker, you can do that.
Separate App Sound isn’t that difficult to find in the Settings app, but if you don’t know where to look, chances are you’ve glossed over it countless times without ever realizing. To set up and enable Separate App Sound, here’s what to do. Open the Settings app on your Samsung phone. Tap Sounds and vibrations. Scroll to the bottom of the page. Tap Separate app sound. Tap the toggle next to Turn on now. Tap Select on the pop-up. Select which apps you want. Select whether to play the audio from those apps on your phone or a connected Bluetooth device.
After doing this, you may receive a notification about changing your main audio output. For example, I selected YouTube and YouTube Music to play through the Pixel Buds 2a, but they were already set as the main audio device on my phone. After tapping OK on this notification, my Samsung phone speakers switched to the main audio output, while the Pixel Buds 2a were limited to playing YouTube and YouTube Music audio, as configured above.
Separate App Sound first debuted with the Galaxy S8 series in 2017, so while it’s far from a new feature, it’s also rarely discussed. I’ve been writing about Android phones for years, and I wasn’t aware of its existence until a recent post on r/SamsungGalaxy pointed it out.
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