Disabling external audio on iMacs

[nvidia]

I work for a company where our iMacs are publicly used by our customers. We need to have the external volume disabled but at the same time need internal to still be enabled so that users can plug in headphones to listen to audio. The current solution that is not really working is using parental controls to limit the user from adjusting the audio controls..this is a poor solution and is not working out very well for me. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[joshuasee]

What about a USB audio adapter or USB headphones as the default audio device? They're fairly cheap and pigtail adapters could be taped in a position that made them more accessible than the rear headphone port. I use SwitchAudioSource tripped by a login policy to keep sound running through USB headphones in a language lab.

https://github.com/deweller/switchaudio-osx

[nvidia]

@joshuasee thank you for your response. I apologize for leaving this out of my description but we have a huge issue with theft so we are unable to attach any usb or headphones to the audio out port. Could switchaudio still be used if I am unable to leave anything plugged in?

[joshuasee]

Cable cooties are your friend. We used them on keyboards and mice until USB peripherals became common enough that theft wasn't a problem.

I tested SwitchAudioSource, and unfortunately it sees a "Built-In Audio Output", which is correct, when either speakers or headphones are in use. macOS has a way to detect when the headphone port is in use, but I don't know how to find it programmatically.

[Nix4Life]

@nvidia you could re-purpose a script i wrote here

[sswartz]

How about physically disconnecting the speakers?

[nvidia]

Thanks everyone! @LSinNY I will try to re-purpose the script.