Quicksilver’s iTunes plugin comes with several excellent scripts, one of them is to mute iTunes.
The only problem is, that you can still hear all the system sounds. Pretty annoying if you are in a meeting or sitting in a class.
My workaround was to write an Apple Script to control the system volume:
| set curVol to (get (output volume of (get volume settings))) if curVol > 0 then set volume output volume 0 else set volume output volume 50 end if |
This script will mute the system volume, or set it back to 50% if it’s already muted (the value for “set volume” is a percentage value from 0 to 100).
That’s it, I created a keyboard trigger to execute this script (I used Shift-Ctrl-Command + M) and I can mute my system without having to use the mouse or trackpad.

August 3rd, 2008 at 8:04 am
Thanks for this quick script. I just got a new keyboard and the default function keys were driving me crazy. I’m surprised that there wasn’t a convenient mute/unmute option in Apple’s own Keyboard Shortcuts system preferences, or at least one that’s easy to find.