How to Separate App Sounds on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ has a nice little feature that lets you pick an app and redirect its audio output to a different audio device than normal.

On most smartphones, there’s usually only a way to have one specific audio output source at a time. So for example, if you’re listening to some music through a Bluetooth speaker or headphones, then any notification sounds or other game/app sounds will also come through that source.

This is fine for most cases but Samsung has found a way to add a layer of customization to this entire process on the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

The idea here is to let you set one specific application to a certain output audio source. This way, when you’re playing a game, receive a phone call/text message or are just alerted by a notification sound, all of that audio can be coming through your external phone speaker. However, you could also have this feature set to let your music application (like Spotify, Google Play Music, YouTube, etc.) to be playing through your Bluetooth speaker/headphones while this all happens.

The process is really easy to setup and you should be able to come up with some useful and unique use cases for it.

Galaxy S8 Separate App Sounds

1. Launch the Settings application
2. Scroll down and tap on the Sounds and Vibration option
3. Scroll down to the Advanced section
4. Tap on the Separate App Sound option
5. Tap the App option toward the bottom
6. Browse and tap the application you want to isolate the sounds for
7. Tap the back button
8. Tap the Audio Device option
9. Choose which audio output source you want that app to use
10. Tap the back button
11. Then tap the toggle at the top right corner to enable the feature

Explanation

This is one of those feature that really piqued my interest when I learned about it. As I mentioned, not everyone will have a use for this, but it has the potential to be incredibly useful for a number of people. I’m not sure if there was a technical reason as to why Samsung is only limiting this feature to one application at a time though. I can see this being even more useful if you could select multiple applications from the list, but maybe that will come in an update.

To start, we simply need to launch the Settings application and then scroll down to tap on the Sounds and Vibration option. Here, you’ll want to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page until you see the Advanced section. In this section is an option called Separate App Sound and when you tap on it you will be taken to the main area of this feature. It’s here that you will be able to select your application (or game), and then the output source.

So look toward the bottom and tap the App option. This will present you with a list of apps that you can choose from. Tap on one and then tap on the Back button to go back to where you were. Then you’ll want to tap on the Audio Device option and you’ll be given a list of audio output sources to choose from. Tap on the one you want and then tap on the Back button again to go back. From here, the whole thing has been configured and you just need to enable it.

So look up at the top right corner and you’ll see a toggle that you can tap on. This toggle turns the Galaxy S8 Separate App Sounds feature on and off so you’ll always be able to come back here and disable it if you end up not being a fan of it. Once the feature is enabled, you’ll see a notification pop up and you can just swipe it away to dismiss it. It’s just telling you the feature has been enabled so you know it’s working before you test it. So now press the Home button and then test out your new configuration.