How to check your camera before a call on Mac

Why a Mac has no quick camera check

A Mac’s camera is off until an app asks for it, and macOS has no camera window of its own. To see yourself you open an app that uses the camera — Photo Booth, FaceTime, or the call app itself — and each of those takes over the screen, or puts you on a join screen with a meeting waiting behind it.

That’s fine once. It’s awkward two minutes before a call, when you have a document open that you’re about to present, and all you want to know is whether the light is on your face and the background is tidy. Opening and quitting a whole app for a five-second look is the gap a small floating mirror fills.

Ways to check your camera with what macOS gives you

Photo Booth. It’s in Applications on every Mac and shows the camera the moment it opens. It’s the quickest built-in check; quit it with ⌘Q when you’re done so the camera goes off again.

FaceTime. Opening FaceTime shows your camera in its window before you call anyone. If you have more than one camera, choose which one from the Video menu.

The call app’s own preview. Zoom, Google Meet in a browser, Microsoft Teams and most other call apps show your camera on the screen before you join, and let you pick the camera and microphone there. It’s the most accurate check, because it’s the exact picture the call will send — but it usually means opening the meeting link early.

Your iPhone as the camera. With Continuity Camera, a nearby iPhone can be your Mac’s webcam. It shows up in each app’s camera list like any other camera, so the same checks apply; pick it in Photo Booth or the call app to see what it sees.

Once an app is using the camera, click the green camera icon in the menu bar for Video Effects such as Portrait, Center Stage and Studio Light, on Macs and cameras that support them. They apply to whatever app is using the camera, so set them while you’re looking at a preview.

What to check in the ten seconds before you join

Light in front of you, not behind you. A bright window behind you turns you into a silhouette, because the camera exposes for the brightest part of the picture. Turn to face the window or a lamp, or turn on Studio Light where your Mac offers it.

Camera at eye level. A laptop on a desk looks up at you. A stack of books under it, or an external display with the camera on top, puts the camera level with your eyes.

What’s behind you. Look at the edges of the picture as well as the middle: doors, laundry, a screen showing something you’d rather not share.

The mirror effect. Most previews show you mirrored, the way a mirror does, because that feels natural. The people on the call usually see the picture the right way round, so writing behind you reads normally to them even though it reads backwards to you.

How the floating mirror works

MacFixes adds a small camera window that floats over whatever you’re doing. Press ⌃⇧⌘M to show it and again to hide it; the shortcut can be changed. Drag it to any corner, and right-click it to change its size or shape, or, when you have more than one camera, which camera it shows.

The camera runs only while the mirror is showing, so on a Mac’s built-in camera the green light comes on with it and goes off when you hide it. macOS asks once for permission to use the camera, as it does for any app. The mirror is hidden from screen sharing and recordings by default, so you can keep it open while you present and nobody sees it; you can turn that off in its settings if you want it in a recording.

It’s a preview for you, not a call app: your call app still has its own camera settings, and the picture it sends is the one in its own preview.

Getting ready for a call, the rest of the way

A camera check is one part of being ready. To make sure you’re not heard before you mean to be, mute every microphone with one shortcut, and to keep the call in your headset while music stays on the speakers, send each app to its own output. Before you share your screen, clear every notification at once and hide the files on your desktop. And to see how long you have before the call starts, put the next meeting in the menu bar.

Recording a demo instead of joining a call? Set the window you’re recording to a fixed size first — resize a window to an exact size explains how, and why a 1920 × 1080 window on a Retina Mac records at twice that.

If no app can see the camera at all, check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera: an app that isn’t switched on there gets no picture. On a MacBook with the lid closed and an external display connected, the built-in camera isn’t available, so choose another camera or open the lid.

If calls keep freezing, the connection is a likelier culprit than the camera: watch your internet speed live in the menu bar. And if the Mac has no internet at all, check the IP address it was given — an address starting with 169.254 means the router never answered.

Permissions, and turning it off

More fixes macOS doesn’t give you

One of 47 fixes and 10 apps in MacFixes. Every fix · Every app · Something else your Mac won’t do? Request it.