Windows Audio Output Switcher

A small, self-contained tray utility for Windows that lets you cycle through your audio playback devices with a single hotkey, and shows an on-screen overlay telling you which one is now active.

It's a single ~4 MB .exe with no installation dependencies, no admin rights required, and nothing running except while you're logged in.

What it does

• Cycles the default playback device. Press Win+A (the default hotkey, changeable), left-click the tray icon, or pick a device from the right-click menu, and Windows' default audio output moves to the next active playback device in the list, wrapping back to the first one after the last. It takes effect for every application immediately — the same as changing it by hand in the Windows sound settings.
• Win+A actually works for this, even though Windows normally reserves it for Quick Settings (same goes for any other reserved combo you configure it to instead). See how.
• Shows an on-screen overlay on every switch — styled after Windows' own volume/brightness OSD, not a toast notification — naming the device that is now active, so you get instant confirmation of what you just switched to. A burst of rapid switches only ever shows the latest one.
• Lives in the system tray:
  • Left-click the tray icon to switch to the next output device.
  • Hovering it shows the app version and the currently active device.
  • Right-click opens a menu listing every currently active output device — click one to switch to it directly (the active one is checked) — followed by Configure and Exit.
• Configure opens %LOCALAPPDATA%\AudioOutputSwitcher\config.yaml in whatever app Windows has associated with .yaml files. There you can rename a device (alias), leave one out of the cycling (skip), turn starting at login off (autostart), and change the hotkey — or switch it off entirely, leaving the tray icon and menu as the only way to switch. Edits are picked up automatically, no restart needed. Every field is described in the configuration reference.

Installing

1. Grab Setup_AudioOutputSwitcher.exe from the latest release and run it.
2. Click Install/Update (or just wait 5 seconds). It downloads the newest AudioOutputSwitcher.exe into %LOCALAPPDATA%\AudioOutputSwitcher, next to its config, and starts it immediately — no reboot and no admin rights needed. Your Startup folder only gets a shortcut to it, and only while autostart is on (the default).
3. Running setup again at any time re-checks for updates: it downloads the latest release and only replaces the installed copy if it actually differs. It always deploys under the same fixed filename, so there is only ever a single installed copy, and nothing else is left lying around to keep track of versions. Installs from older versions are moved over, settings included.

The switcher itself has no window; look for its icon in the system tray (you may need to expand the "hidden icons" arrow the first time).

Uninstalling

Run Setup_AudioOutputSwitcher.exe again and click Uninstall. It stops the running app, removes it and its config along with the Startup folder shortcut, and finally removes itself — nothing is left behind.

Something not working?

Start AudioOutputSwitcher.exe with -enable-logging to have it write AudioOutputSwitcher.log next to itself — see Troubleshooting.

More

DETAILS.md has the full configuration and command-line reference, scripted installs, how to build from source, how the switching and the Win+ hotkey actually work, and what lives where in the repository.

License

MIT