Settings — General

Settings in the menu bar → General tab. Five sections, from convenience to last resort.

Startup

Auto-start with Windows (switched on during your first launch) — Aura Mixer launches when you sign in to Windows, so your routing and processing are live before you've opened anything else. If a program plays audio before the mixer is up, it plays through plain Windows until the engine takes over.

Minimize to tray on auto-start (default: off) — when Aura Mixer starts with Windows, it stays in the tray instead of opening its window. Opening it yourself always shows the window.

Pairs naturally with the tray behaviour below — together they make the mixer permanent infrastructure: always running, never in the way. Details: Tray icon & auto-start.

Window

Minimize to tray on close (default: on) — clicking the window's ✕ hides Aura Mixer to the system tray instead of quitting, and the audio keeps flowing. A mixer that dies when you close its window would take your stream's sound with it — this default protects you from that. Switch it off and ✕ will ask what you want instead.

Privacy

Share anonymous diagnostics & usage (default: off) — sends two kinds of anonymous data: engine health (crash and audio-glitch reports — underruns, engine restarts) and usage (which features you use, roughly how you've set the app up). Both are tied to a random install id generated when you turn this on, never your license or account — device names, file paths, anything you've named yourself (channels, scenes, presets) and anything about what you play, record or stream are never collected. Off by default; details at aura-mixer.com/legal/privacy.

If you already had this on before usage data was added, Aura Mixer asks you again the next time you use it a while — declining that ask (or this toggle) is remembered and you won't be asked twice.

Engine

Start engine on app launch (default: on) — automatically starts the audio engine as soon as the app finishes loading, so sound is flowing the moment Aura Mixer opens. The very first launch is the exception: the engine waits until the setup flow has picked your devices. Switch it off if you'd rather start the engine yourself with ▶.

Auto-restart on failure (default: off) — if the engine hits a burst of audio glitches, Aura Mixer restarts it automatically instead of leaving you in silence. Switch it on and three settings appear:

• Threshold — how many overruns (dropped-audio glitches) within the window trigger a restart (default 50). Harmless underruns don't count — they're smoothed over, not a fault.
• Window (seconds) — the rolling period those events are counted over (default 5).
• Cooldown (seconds) — the minimum gap between automatic restarts, so it can't loop on itself (default 15).

The defaults suit most systems: raise the threshold if the occasional harmless glitch triggers needless restarts, lower it if you'd rather the mixer recover more eagerly.

Danger Zone

Factory Reset — wipes everything: channels, buses, groups, scenes, presets, settings — back to first-launch state, and re-runs the first-run setup wizard (license-key screen, then your Gaming / Streaming setup). The button asks for an inline confirmation (Yes, reset), because there is no undo.