Can you connect two pairs of airpods to one computer at once

airpods

I would like to watch a movie with a friend, but silently. Can we each use a set of airpods at once? If not, what about other wireless headphones?

Best Answer

I don't have a pair of Airpods to test this with but it worked perfectly with a bluetooth speaker and my headphones.

Update: @David Bonnet was kind enough to test this with 2 pairs of Airpods and Apple unfortunately has prevented you from doing this by treating them as special devices rather than as generic bluetooth devices. You can use the steps below to connect to a pair of Airpods and any other bluetooth or hardwired audio device, but not 2 pairs of Airpods.

  1. Pair both Airpods to the computer. You need to be able to select them separately as Outputs in System Preferences -> Sound -> Output (Set the output volume for each Airpod now as you can't set it once you select the combined device. You can always switch back to the individual ones and change their volume before going back to the combined one)
  2. Open Audio MIDI Setup in Applications/Utilities
  3. Click the + at the bottom left and select Create Multi-Output Device
  4. Check the boxes next to both Airpods (or any other 2+ output devices)
  5. (Optional) Rename the output by clicking on the name Multi-Output Device in the list
  6. Select the new device you created from the volume menu or from the Sound System Preferences.
  7. Enjoy sharing audio with your friend.

Also a video that may help visualize the steps above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGg0FIm6eOk

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