How to Turn Off Camera & Microphone on Zoom for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, etc
Did you recently start using Zoom for making video calls or participating in online meetings? In that case, you might not be familiar with the interface, and even some of the basic tips like toggling off and on the video camera and microphone when on Zoom.
This article is going to walk through turning off camera and microphone on Zoom for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, the web client, and Android.
When you’re in an active video call, you may often find yourself wanting to mute your microphone when someone’s trying to talk to you in the background, or perhaps you’re just clearing your throat. Or sometimes, you may want to turn off your camera if you’re busy with something else and not interacting with the participants. Nobody wants any sort of audio or video disturbance especially during an important Zoom meeting, so it’s polite to toggle the Zoom microphone and camera off at times. Fortunately, muting your microphone or turning off the camera can be done really quickly on Zoom, and this article will cover how to accomplish that while using Zoom on basically any device.
How to Turn Off Camera & Microphone on Zoom for iPhone & iPad
First, we’ll cover how you silence your mic and disable the camera when using Zoom on iPhone and iPad. The steps are actually pretty straightforward. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
- Launch the Zoom app on your iPhone or iPad. Start a new meeting or join an existing meeting.
- While you’re in an active video call, tap on the screen to access all the options.
- Now, you’ll see the Mute option at the bottom-left corner of the screen. Tap on it to disable the microphone. Right next to it, you’ll find the option “Stop Video”. Tap on it to turn off the camera on your device.
- You can also disable your microphone and camera before you even join the meeting. You’ll find these join options in the same menu where you enter your Meeting ID.
That’s all you need to do to mute yourself and disabled the camera during an active call from iPhone or iPad.
Again, you can always toggle the camera and microphone back on again in Zoom if you want to, just by tapping the same buttons again.
How to Turn Off Camera & Microphone on Zoom for Windows & Mac
Whether you use Zoom on Mac, Windows, or the Zoom web client, the following steps are going to be identical. Assuming you already know how to start or join meetings, let’s take a look at what you need to do next to toggle the camera and microphone:
- When you’re in an active video call, hover your mouse cursor over the Zoom window to access the menu. Now, you’ll find the Mute option at the bottom-left corner of the screen. Click on it to disable the microphone. Right next to it, you’ll find the option “Stop Video”. Tap on it to turn off your computer’s webcam.
- Just like the smartphone app, you can disable your microphone and camera before joining a meeting. You’ll find these options where you usually enter the meeting ID as shown in the screenshot below.
There you go. Now you know how to mute yourself and turn off your webcam on desktop Zoom clients for Mac, Windows, and the web too.
And of course just clicking those camera and microphone buttons again will allow you to re-enable the mic and cam in Zoom at any time.
No matter what device you use for Zoom meetings, you should have a better understanding of how to perform this relatively simple but commonly asked question.
The next time before you join a meeting, you can make sure your camera and microphone are off and manually turn it on whenever you’re ready. Plus, you can quickly mute the microphone if there’s so much noise in the room or turn off your webcam for some privacy.
If the room you’re zooming in is a bit messy or you don’t want to reveal your location to others in the meeting, you may be interested in learning how to hide the real background with a virtual background on Zoom. You have access to a bunch of stock pictures, but you can use custom images or even videos (if you’re on a computer) as virtual backgrounds. This feature works best with a green screen and uniform lighting, but it works fine with many other less neutral backgrounds too as long as you’re not moving around too much.
Considering you’re fairly new to Zoom, you may also be interested in sharing your iPhone or iPad screen with other participants in the Zoom meeting. Fortunately, this is pretty easy and you can screen share within a matter of seconds using the built-in screen recording feature on iOS devices.
Now that you know how to enable and disable the microphone and camera at your convenience during Zoom meetings, you might be interested in checking out more Zoom tips and tricks as well.
Have any particular thoughts or experiences with using and muting microphones and cameras with Zoom? Share in the comments below!
