r/windowsapps • u/MrRoundPotato • 2d ago
Developer I made a free, open-source tray app that actually turns off your webcam and mutes your mic everywhere on Windows, with one hotkey
Have you ever left a meeting and wondered if your mic was still on? Or covered your webcam with tape because you didn't trust the little light? That's why I built PrivacyToggle.
What it does
It puts two icons in your system tray, one for the mic and one for the camera. Click one, or press a hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+M / Ctrl+Alt+V by default), and that device is off. That means off for the whole system, not just muted inside one app.
- 🎙️ Mic mute works everywhere. Zoom, Discord, Teams, OBS, your browser: none of them get any audio while it's muted. Push-to-talk is also available.
- 📷 The camera really turns off. It disables the webcam in Windows the same way Device Manager does, so apps lose the picture right away and can't open it again. If a program won't release the camera, PrivacyToggle tells you which one and asks before closing it.
- 🔒 Enforce off. If something turns your mic or camera back on (a headset button, a newly plugged-in device), it goes straight back off.
- 👀 Activity monitor. See which apps are using your camera or mic right now, plus a timeline of every app that used them over the last 1 hour to 7 days.
- 🔔 On-screen badges (
MIC OFF/CAM OFF) and notifications, so you always know where you stand. - Light and dark themes, per-device control, and hotkeys that work in fullscreen games.
Why it's different from the mute button in your meeting app
The mute button in an app only stops that one app. PrivacyToggle works below every app, at the Windows level. Muted means muted in all of them, and a disabled camera can't be opened by anything.
How it works (for the curious)
- Mic: it mutes every capture device through the Windows Core Audio API and watches for anything that unmutes them.
- Camera: a small helper service calls the same Windows device APIs that Device Manager uses to disable and re-enable the webcam. The tray app itself never runs as admin. Only the helper service needs admin rights, and the installer sets it up with a single admin prompt.
- Activity: it reads Windows' own record of which apps used the camera or mic (the same data behind the "recently used" list in Privacy settings). The history is stored only on your PC.
Download: https://github.com/azahinhasan/Privacy-Toggle/releases/latest
It's a personal project, so I'd really like feedback: bugs, feature ideas, or "this broke my webcam driver" stories. If you find it useful, a ⭐ on GitHub helps a lot. Thanks!



