What should you use to protect your MacBook's camera?

January 30, 2023 By Raulf Hernes

(Image Credit Google)

Highlights:

Why you should be concerned about the cover of your MacBook?
What are the possible alternatives?
How you can be rescued?

If you're concerned that your MacBook's webcam could spy on you, you might choose to buy a plastic camera cover, which you can get for around $5, but try to avoid them. It will damage your asset more than you can accept. Now the question is what you can do.

Remove MacBook Camera Covers

When something is as expensive and difficult to fix as a MacBook, you shouldn't use cheap accessories that may break it. That cheap camera cover might give you some peace of mind, but it also puts your MacBook at risk of a repair bill when you hit it shut with the cover on. Apple’s MacBooks are designed to be as thin and light as possible, which means that their fault tolerances are quite low. If you stick a piece of plastic between the trackpad and the display, the screen and the trackpad can be damaged if you aren’t careful. Even with an insurance policy like AppleCare+, repairing this kind of damage is expensive, and it isn’t worth taking the risk. (Sliding plastic covers also tend to leave scratch marks on the screen.) A $5 accessory isn’t worth risking harm to a high-end laptop, especially when there are better alternatives. [caption id="attachment_85041" align="aligncenter" width="1136"]

Reuters/Robert Galbraith[/caption]

What you can use instead:

There are other ways to prevent your MacBook's camera from being used without your permission, and none of them will damage your laptop. If you are absolutely set on using a physical cover, you could connect the MacBook to an external monitor and leave it in clamshell mode. So, its camera is always covered, and you can use the laptop with a larger screen. If this is not an option, you can cover the camera with electrical tape. This is more of a permanent solution; no one wants to peel and unpeel the tape each time you make a video call, so only consider using tape if you're not going to use the webcam and are ok with sticking it to the screen. The easiest way to turn off your webcam on your MacBook is to notice the LED in front of it. It’s a security feature in your computer that is very hard, if not impossible, to disable. You can also check your camera permissions by visiting System Settings > Privacy & Security > Camera and denying camera access to apps that don't need it. A similar setting is also available on your browser's settings page, so be sure to deny camera access to sites you don't use. Lastly, you can download apps like OverSight, which will alert you when the camera on your Mac is being used.

By Raulf Hernes

If you ask me raulf means ALL ABOUT TECH!!

What should you use to protect your MacBook's camera?

Remove MacBook Camera Covers

What you can use instead:

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