Privacy

See which app has your camera, microphone or screen

palupdated 2026-09-29SystemIn pal's registry󱔓Menu bar: Camera, Mic & Screen

Open in pal

In pal's registry: the button shows it in pal, which asks before installing; the command does the same from a terminal. This page can't see what your pal has installed.

Privacy: One row per app: what it holds and for how long, a screen share and a recording in Terminal included
One row per app: what it holds and for how long, a screen share and a recording in Terminal included
Privacy: Enter brings the app forward; the privacy settings are a shortcut away
Enter brings the app forward; the privacy settings are a shortcut away
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What it does

Which app is using the camera, the microphone or the screen right now, during a call, a screen share or a recording. A bar item appears only while one is in use.

  • A bar item that shows up only while the camera, microphone or screen is in use, with a mark for each
  • Names the app behind it, even when a helper or a command started by the app does the recording
  • Reads the same record as the macOS menu bar's dots, so a Zoom call or a Meet share is named right
  • Updates within a second of anything turning on or off
  • enter brings the app forward, s opens the privacy settings
  • Type camera or mic in the search to see who has it

Palettes 1

  • Camera, Mic & Screenprivacylive

    Every app using the camera, the microphone or the screen now, cameras first.

    • ↵Bring the app forward
    • ⌘orOpen the sensor's privacy settings

Actions

  • Show the appBrings the app using the sensor forward; a camera with no app opens its privacy settings.↵
  • Open privacy settings⌘or

Settings

No settings. It works out of the box.

The README

Everything Privacy does, key by key, from the extension's own README.md

Privacy

What is using the camera, the microphone or the screen right now, over the core's privacy capability: the macOS menu bar's orange, green and purple dots, with the app named.

One palette, Camera, Mic & Screen (privacy), live: one row per app, what it holds and for how long. Enter brings the app forward; a row with no app (a camera seen before Control Center named it) opens the privacy settings instead. ⌘, opens the sensor's privacy settings from any row.

One bar item, Camera, Mic & Screen (privacy/in-use). It is off the strip until the camera, the microphone or the screen is in use (a call, a screen share, a recording), then shows a glyph per sensor on an amber band with the apps in the tooltip. The popover is one row per app: its icon, what it holds as a coloured glyph and word (green camera, amber microphone, violet screen) and for how long, ticking while it is open. Enter brings the focused app forward, s opens Privacy & Security. The core watches once the item has rendered and re-renders it on a change, so it appears within a second or two with no poll in the extension.

Rows

part what
name the app responsible (a helper or a command counts against the app that started it), else the camera
subtitle what it holds (Camera, Microphone), then the process when it is not the app (ffmpeg)
accessory for how long: from the log line that first named it (a call that began before pal did keeps its start), else from when pal first saw it
icon the app's icon, else the sensor's glyph

Where it comes from

  • macOS: the camera and the screen from Control Center's own record of the menu bar's dots (its sensor-indicators log: read once, then followed), which names the app; the microphone from CoreAudio's process objects (macOS 14.2+). A camera CoreMediaIO sees running before the log names it shows as the device, and an attached Screen Sharing session (screensharingd) as Screen Sharing.
  • Linux: pactl -f json list source-outputs for the microphone, /proc/*/fd links into /dev/video* for the camera.