How to add click sounds to your Mac (every click, every app)

A Mac makes almost no sound when you click. The trackpad on recent laptops does not even move; the "click" you feel is a haptic motor pretending. Some people like the silence. Others miss the small, definite sound of a button being pressed, especially after switching from a clicky mouse or a mechanical keyboard.

macOS has no setting for this. There is no "play a sound on click" switch anywhere in System Settings. What you need is a small app that watches for clicks and plays a sound for each one, and that is what qliqr does. It lives in the menu bar, works in every app, and is free. This guide takes you from download to a tuned setup.

The steps

1. Download qliqr from qliqr.com/mac. It is a normal Mac app, a few megabytes, with no account and no sign-up. The free version includes one sound, Flint; the one-time Full upgrade unlocks the whole library.
2. Open the download and drag qliqr to your Applications folder. Then open it from Applications. qliqr has no main window; it appears as a small icon in the menu bar at the top right of the screen.
3. Allow Input Monitoring when asked. qliqr needs this permission to see when the mouse button goes down and comes up. macOS will show a prompt; if you miss it, open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Input Monitoring, and turn on qliqr. If you granted it after the app was already open, quit qliqr and open it again so the permission takes effect.
4. Click something and listen. You should hear a short click on press and a softer one on release. If you hear nothing, check the menu bar icon is not muted, and see the troubleshooting notes at the end.
5. Pick a sound family. Open qliqr's settings from the menu bar icon. Sounds are grouped into families such as Snap, Hush, Desk Job, Gadget and Toybox. Click through a few and listen; each one plays as you select it.
6. Set the volume, separately for press and release. The Press volume and Release volume sliders are independent. A common setup is a clear press and a quieter release, which gives you the shape of a click without doubling the noise.
7. Add quiet rules. Turn on Quiet on calls so clicks mute automatically while you are in a video call, and use Quiet In These Apps to silence clicks in specific apps, such as a music player or a game that already has its own sounds.
8. Optionally turn on haptics and the ripple. On a Force Touch trackpad, qliqr can add a haptic tap on each click. The ripple is a small visible circle drawn under the cursor at the moment of the click; it is mainly useful when you share your screen or record it.

That is a complete setup. The rest of this page is about getting the sound right and some notes on trackpads.

Choosing a sound

The sound you pick matters more than you might expect, because you will hear it hundreds of times a day. A click that is fun for the first minute can be grating by the first hour. A few things worth thinking about:

Where you are. In headphones, almost anything works, and you can enjoy the bright, detailed sounds. Through laptop speakers in a shared room, pick something muted so the people around you do not have to share your clicks.

What else is playing. If you listen to music or podcasts while working, a short dry click that gets out of the way quickly will sit better than one with a tail or a tone.

Press and release. Most of qliqr's sounds have a distinct press and release, so a click feels like it has two halves, the way a real button does. If you find the second half distracting, turn the Release volume down rather than switching sounds.

Three sounds that show the range. The free one, Flint, is a dry, bright strike with a quick spark on top:

Flintabout this sound

Velvet, from the Hush family, is low and cushioned, more felt than heard, for shared rooms and long days:

Velvetabout this sound

Toggle is a panel switch with a firm over-center snap, for people who want a click with real travel:

Toggleabout this sound

The whole library is on the sounds page, one page per sound, with a play button on each. If you want to compare them quickly from the browser before installing anything, the mouse click sound tester plays the same sounds on every click.

The families, briefly: Snap is tight and crisp. Desk Job is office mice through the decades. Hush is muted and safe to leave on while recording. Toybox is pops and boops. Close-Up is glass, stone and wood, recorded close. Fidget is the pen, the buckle and the bubble wrap. Gadget is switches, shutters and mechanisms. And there is a seasonal Spooky family with knocks and squeaks. Scroll sounds are separate and attach to the scroll wheel, with a soft tick per notch if you want one.

Trackpads

Everything above applies to trackpads as well as mice. qliqr listens for the click event, not the device, so a tap on a Magic Trackpad or a built-in laptop trackpad gets the same sound as a mouse button.

A few trackpad-specific notes:

Tap to click. If you have tap to click turned on in System Settings, a light tap is a click as far as macOS is concerned, and qliqr plays the sound for it. This is often where click sounds feel best, because tapping a glass surface is otherwise completely silent.

Haptics. Force Touch trackpads (every MacBook since 2015 and the Magic Trackpad 2 onward) contain a haptic motor. qliqr can fire it on each click, which gives a sharper, more mechanical feel than the default. The setting is Haptic feedback on the trackpad, in the Haptics section. Haptics make no sound, so by default they keep going even when the click sounds are quiet. There is a separate guide on trackpad haptics on a Mac if you want the detail.

Right click. A two-finger tap or a Control-click is a right click, and qliqr treats it as one: you can give the secondary button a different sound or a different ripple color, which makes it easy to tell the two apart in a recording.

Drag and hold. Click-and-drag plays the press on the way down and the release when you let go, so a long drag sounds like one long click rather than a burst of them.

Troubleshooting

No sound. Three things cover almost every case. First, Input Monitoring: check System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Input Monitoring, and make sure qliqr is on. Second, quit and reopen the app after granting the permission. Third, check that no quiet rule is active: if you are on a call, Quiet on calls mutes clicks by design, and if the current app is in the Quiet In These Apps list, it is silent there on purpose.

Sound in some apps but not others. That is almost always a Quiet In These Apps rule. Open the list and remove the app.

Clicks are too loud or too quiet relative to everything else. Use qliqr's own Press volume and Release volume sliders, not the system volume, so your music and calls stay where they were.

Clicks move from ear to ear in headphones. That is Pan sound left and right with the cursor, which follows the cursor across the screen. Some people love it. If you do not, turn it off in the Sounds settings.

qliqr does not start with the Mac. Turn on Open qliqr when I log in, in the General settings.

Click sounds showing up in a recording when you did not want them. Add the recorder, or the app you are demonstrating, to Quiet In These Apps. If you do want the clicks in a recording, how to add click sounds to screen recordings on a Mac explains the audio side.

Free versus Full

The free version is not a trial. It includes Flint, works everywhere, and does not expire. The Full upgrade is a one-time purchase that unlocks every sound in the library, including the scroll sounds, along with the recorder extras like export presets. If Flint is the only click you ever want, you never need to pay.