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When I enter a bus or an elevator, I want to set media volume to zero and then continue to use my smartphone as usual (which includes flashcards with pronunciation, social media videos, and other activities where sound is not essential).

Requirements:

  • Sets volume to zero immediately. Only one touch on the app launcher, that's all. No UI (at most a toast).
  • Not a widget (for memory/battery reasons), just a normal app launcher.
  • Runs on Android N and above
  • Free, ideally open source

Tried but discarded:

Sound off: The UI is perfect (just an app launcher and a toast), but the problem is that besides media volume it increases notification volume from "Alarms only" to "Vibrate", which is irritating. The app should always go towards less noise, not more. Mute: Half of the time it makes the black volume setting drop-down GUI appear, which is totally unnecessary.

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  • Are you by any chance already using Tasker?
    – Izzy ♦
    Sep 7, 2017 at 9:51
  • @Izzy: No, but feel free to answer with that :-)
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    Sep 8, 2017 at 2:22

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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It doesn't meet the requirement if you don't, but if you already use Tasker anyway, this can easily be achieved:

Just create a new task, let's call it "Silencer". Chose Audio › Media Volume, set it to zero, save. Now you have the action you want to perform – but you wanted that on the homescreen. So we create a shortcut for it. Quoting:

  1. Click and hold in an empty space on the Android home screen, until a dialog appears.
  2. Select Widgets or Shortcuts
  3. Select Task or Task Timer (Widgets only)
  4. Pick an existing task or create a new one. When creating a new one, if you do not expect to change the function of the widget/shortcut select One-Time to avoid it cluttering your list of tasks.
  5. Use the Configuration Screen to configure what should happen when the icon is clicked (or the timer expires, in the case of a Task Timer widget). Take care to select an appropriate name and icon for the task, as these will appear on the home screen.

So if you already use Tasker, this should meet all your requirements:

  • : Yes, as you don't need anything additional (No if you need to get Tasker first)
  • Sets volume to zero immediately. Only one touch on the app launcher, that's all. No UI (at most a toast). Yes for the action (obviously No for the setup, but that's a one-time action).
  • Not a widget (for memory/battery reasons), just a normal app launcher. It's a normal shortcut, no "active widget" – so: condition met.
  • Runs on Android N and above: Cannot verify this personally – but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have missed the scream if it didn't ;)
  • Free, ideally open source: Nope, sorry, neither.
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  • Thanks! For such a simple thing I was hoping for a free tool, if there is none I might make an open source now. A similar strategy is MacroDroid which passes the gratis requirement (allows 5 free macros) but fails the shortcut requirement (must use a widget).
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    Sep 8, 2017 at 6:36
  • Yes – and that's one of the reasons I didn't recommend MacroDroid (the other is I don't use it and thus couldn't tell if it has the media control covered). And of course I wouldn't say to install Tasker just for this one task. It was rather along the lines of "if it's there, why install more" :) The proper task/profile can replace some app (and did replace more than one for me), though sometimes the UI is less convenient if needed for "daily use" (not in this case, though, as no "daily GUI" needed/wanted).
    – Izzy ♦
    Sep 8, 2017 at 6:40

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