I wish Zoom had an in-app mute button. I'd love it if I didn't have to mute the entire computer.

EDIT: For MacOS, I found this: https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic

Sorry if this is insensitive or just clueless, but, to you and OP: If you have nothing to contribute to a meeting and have no reason to hear the things that are said at the meeting, why do you even attend? Just skip it. Maybe I'm privileged by being farther along in my career, but when I see a meeting that I don't get anything out of and don't contribute anything to, I just decline and move on with my life.

Do you really think merely having your name show up as one of 35 attendees in Zoom is really going to positively affect your career?

I used to be worried about things like face time and "they'll notice I'm gone" but I gave that worry up. I guarantee at most companies it's really not a big deal. No VP goes back to his office after a meeting and says to himself "Hmm, DroneEngineer43318 was not silently sitting at my meeting. I must ensure he doesn't get promoted next cycle!". If you're not presenting or need the information, nobody is going to care that you're absent.

A trick I've used before in a pinch is to set your monitor connection (via USB-C/HDMI/DisplayPort) as the Zoom audio output. I never use it as an output, so it's permanently muted in the on-screen menus. Since Zoom makes it fairly easy to customize audio, it can act as a simple mute effect.

Nice hack, thanks. I'll try it.

You can mute individual applications in windows volume mixer (right click speaker icon in the taskbar, click open volume mixer). I don't know if there's a Mac equivalent but I would be really surprised if there wasn't.

Also Windows+G brings up an on screen overlay over any application with the volume mixer and other stuff. Its super useful.

Ubuntu Desktop: Settings->Sound

There you have per application volume control

If you're on Windows, the app EarTrumpet provides easy access to per-app audio controls. It should really be included with Windows.

I don't use EarTrumpet, but I think (?) right clicking the volume icon -> volume mixer has a similar effect, and is included with the OS.

I use this to tune windows system sounds all the way down, and content up. Or balancing audio levels of different apps when they don't have good in-app controls on level (increasingly rare).