If you want to drown out environmental noise, or you just like having white noise in the background while you work, you should try your Mac’s white noise generator. The feature is actually built into every Mac that runs macOS Ventura, you just need to know where to find it.
How to enable Background Sounds on macOS Ventura
You can find the white noise generator in your Mac’s settings menu. Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen and select System Settings. Next, select Accessibility in the left sidebar and click Audio in the right pane. Go to the Background Sounds section to enable Background Sounds. Once you’ve done that, you can select from a bunch of different sounds for your Mac. Click the Choose button next to Background Sound and you’ll see the following options:
Balanced Noise
Bright Noise
Dark Noise
Ocean
Rain
Stream
Hit the download button next to the sounds you want to download. That’ll save them to your Mac so you can also play them if you’re offline.
On the previous settings page, there are a couple useful options you should also check out. The first is Background Sounds Volume, which lets you set the volume level for the audio files. Once you’ve picked a comfortable volume, enable Turn off Background Sounds when your Mac is not in use. This setting will stop the sounds when your Mac goes to sleep.
How to generate white noise on older versions of macOS
Unfortunately, Apple’s Background Sounds feature is restricted to the Macs that can run Ventura. If you have an older Mac, you can use other tools to play white noise in the background. Music streaming services usually have a pretty good collection of white noise. Here are some examples on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. Alternatively, you can try white noise apps such as Noizio.