The Sudden Silence
macOS includes a deeply ingrained audio behavior designed to prevent embarrassment: if you are listening to music through headphones (either wired or Bluetooth) and those headphones are suddenly disconnected, the operating system instantly pauses any active audio playback. This prevents your private music or a loud video from suddenly blaring out of the Mac’s internal speakers in a quiet office. However, if you use a complex audio setup, like routing audio through a software mixer that occasionally resets, or if you simply prefer your music to seamlessly switch to the speakers when you take off your headset, this automatic pausing is an unwanted interruption.
Bypassing the Audio Trigger
To maintain continuous playback across all your output devices and stop macOS from automatically pausing your music when headphones disconnect, you must utilize a third-party audio routing tool, as Apple does not provide a native toggle.
Because this behavior is hardcoded into the macOS core audio framework, you cannot change it in System Settings. You must install a utility like AutoMute or use an advanced audio router like Rogue Amoeba’s Loopback. With Loopback, for example, you create a “Virtual Audio Device.” You then set your Mac’s default output to this Virtual Device. Inside Loopback, you route the audio from the Virtual Device to both your headphones and your speakers simultaneously. When you unplug the physical headphones, macOS does not detect an output change (because the system is still playing to the Virtual Device), and the music continues uninterrupted through the speakers.