How can I mute audio using external non-Apple keyboard? I tried several combinations, but I have not found any way so far to mute audio (playing in any application, system wide) using a normal PC-Keyboard (Cherry G80) connected to my Mac Book Pro (2011).

On the built-in keyboard of the MacBook Pro this is simply done by pressing F10 (or Fn-F10, depending on the Pref settings).

I would like to get the Fn+F10 functionality working on the external keyboard. Apparently Apple keyboards have an explicit Fn key and there is seems to work.

What I tried is:


I remapped the Windows Menu key (Application key) to Fn using KeyRemap4MacBook
I made it so that F10 does not show the current Application Window, so F10 is free
Still, when I press F10 or Fn+F10 on the extrenal keyboard, nothing happens


To me it seems that the audio mute functionality is pretty low level in the keyboard stack.

Any thoughts welcome.
The only thing I could think of is making two services (mute + unmute) through Automator and then assigning these services to two different shortcuts from the settings panel.


First open Automator and choose service, then add a shell from the actions menu 
Next write the shell script to mute/unmute and save them 


To mute : osascript -e "set volume with output muted"

To unmute : osascript -e "set volume without output muted"




Finally go to Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services, find the two services you created and assign the shortcut you want.