{"id":213467,"date":"2026-02-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-connected-to-your-mac-video\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T12:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T17:55:07","slug":"how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-connected-to-your-mac-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-connected-to-your-mac-video\/","title":{"rendered":"How to disable privacy indicators on external displays connected to your Mac [Video]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-camera-microphone-connected-to-your-mac\/\">How to disable privacy indicators on external displays connected to your Mac [Video]<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-camera-microphone-connected-to-your-mac\/\">https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-camera-microphone-connected-to-your-mac\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-14 10:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"9to5mac.com\">9to5mac.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Apple includes privacy indicators in the upper-right corner of your Mac\u2019s display to indicate when critical hardware is in use. An orange indicator means your microphone is in use, while a green indicator suggests the camera is in use. These indicators help users stay diligent about apps that may be using the camera or microphone legitimately or, in the worst case, unscrupulously.<\/p>\n<p>While I appreciate having these indicators, they can become a distraction when taking screenshots or recording my Mac\u2019s external display. Thankfully, Apple provides a solution to address the issue without compromising privacy.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-1038413\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Starting with macOS Sonoma 14.4, Apple added the ability to disable privacy indicators on external displays connected to your Mac. Privacy indicators will always appear on your Mac\u2019s main display, but being able to limit them on external displays is a thoughtful compromise. <\/p>\n<p>Privacy indicators will always display in the menu bar, but you can disable them when the menu bar is hidden in an app in full-screen mode or when it\u2019s set to hide automatically. If both the microphone and camera are active, the green (camera) privacy indicator takes precedence, since the camera is the more critical hardware.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Video: How to disable privacy indicators for external Mac displays<\/h2>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How to Hide Privacy Indicators on External Mac Displays #mactip\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h2du_fZKuGc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Subscribe to 9to5mac on YouTube for more videos<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-how-to-disable-external-display-privacy-indicators\">How to disable external display privacy indicators<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Step 1: <\/strong>Start up your Mac from macOS Recovery by shutting down your Mac, <span style=\"margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px;\">th<\/span>en holding the power button until\u00a0\u201cLoading startup options\u2026\u201d appears.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 2:<\/strong> Click Options and then click Continue, and your Mac will boot into macOS Recovery.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 3:<\/strong> Click your Mac\u2019s user \u2192 Next, enter your password, and click Continue. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 4:<\/strong> In the menu bar, click Utilities \u2192 Terminal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 5:<\/strong> Type the following command at the Terminal prompt and press Return on your&#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-camera-microphone-connected-to-your-mac\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to disable privacy indicators on external displays connected to your Mac [Video] https:\/\/9to5mac.com\/2026\/02\/14\/how-to-disable-privacy-indicators-on-external-displays-camera-microphone-connected-to-your-mac\/ Publish&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/9to5mac.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/02\/Hide-Privacy-Indicators-macOS-Mac-Tip-1.jpg?resize=1200%2C628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213469,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213467\/revisions\/213469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}