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In Windows 10, you can quickly change audio playback devices by clicking once on the sound icon in the taskbar:

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I love this feature, but some of the audio devices in the list are ones I never use (like speakers built in to monitors).

Is there anyway I can hide certain playback devices from the list?

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2 Answers 2

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+100

Disabled audio devices should not show in that list.

If you are never going to use a given audio device, then in the Control Panel open the Sound (or Manage Audio Devices) item.

For any entries you do not use, right-click the item in the list and select Disable.

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    Wow, can't believe I didn't try that.
    – user201262
    Commented Nov 19, 2017 at 17:16
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    To be honest, I was only guessing and didn't have a system with multiple audio devices available to confirm. At worst I figured I'd get a few downvotes and learn something.
    – music2myear
    Commented Nov 20, 2017 at 6:32
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    What a fantastic improvement to hide unnecessary audio devices! By the way, at least for me this is the quickest way to go to that Sound window directly: mmsys.cpl (run that).
    – Jim Hoyle
    Commented Oct 22, 2020 at 10:16
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I don't know of a way to customize this list without making the devices generally non-functional.

Disabling or deleting such a device may omit devices that Windows will not recreate on the next boot, but this may be too radical for devices which are necessary for correct functioning such as the speakers.

A light-weight solution is to assign hotkeys to the audio devices that you use, to avoid such errors when selecting.

A free utility that can help is Audio Switcher :

Audio Switcher

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  • This is not entirely true that Windows will recreate disabled audio devices on the next boot. I currently have 6 playback devices, including my four DP monitors and I disabled all of them. Occasionally, seemingly random one gets enabled again. I have not determined why or when this happens, but this is not a rule.
    – Kitet
    Commented Nov 15, 2017 at 11:08
  • @Kitet: Apparently this depends on the device in question. I have modified my answer accordingly.
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 15, 2017 at 11:11

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