How to Disable Privacy Indicators on External Displays Connected to Your Mac (Video) – 9to5Mac

Apple includes privacy indicators in the upper-right corner of your Mac’s display to indicate when important hardware is being used. An orange indicator means the microphone is in use, while a green indicator means the camera is in use. These indicators help users remain vigilant about apps that may be using the camera or microphone legitimately or, at worst, unscrupulously.

While I appreciate these indicators, they can become distracting when taking screenshots or recording my Mac’s external display. Fortunately, Apple provides a solution to solve the problem without compromising privacy.

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’s main display, but being able to restrict them on external displays is a thoughtful compromise.

Privacy indicators always appear in the menu bar, but you can disable them when the menu bar is hidden in a full-screen app or when it’s set to auto-hide. If both the microphone and camera are active, the green (camera) privacy indicator takes precedence because the camera is the more critical hardware.

Video: How to Disable Privacy Indicators for Mac External Displays

For more videos, subscribe to 9to5mac on YouTube

How to disable privacy indicators on an external display

Step 1: Boot your Mac from macOS Recovery by shutting down your Mac, Thursdayby holding the power button until “Loading launch options…” appears.

Step 2: Click Options and then click Continueand your Mac will boot into macOS Recovery.

Step 3: Click on your Mac user → Otherenter your password and click Continue.

Step 4: In the menu bar, click on Utilities → Terminal.

Step 5: Type the following command at the terminal prompt and press Return on your keyboard:

system-override suppress-sw-camera-indication-on-external-displays=on

Step 6: If you have FileVault encryption enabled for your user account, you will see a message that the volume needs to be unlocked to continue. Enter your password in the terminal to unlock the data volume and press Return.

If the command worked, you should see the following message: When using a camera with an external display, the camera’s privacy indicator may not appear in the menu bar on the external screen.

I’ve yet to encounter a situation where the privacy indicator didn’t appear in the menu bar, but you’ll want to keep that option in mind.

Step 7: In the menu bar, click on  → Restart and sign back into macOS.

Step 8: OPEN Settings → Privacy and security → Camera (or microphone).

Step 9: Prohibit Personal data protection indicators toggle at the bottom of the page and authenticate with your password or Touch ID.

Note: Changing Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera will also change Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone and vice versa.

9to5Mac’s Take

I think privacy indicators are a must to keep track of critical hardware usage, but I find them invasive at times, especially for screenshots and screencasts. I appreciate that Apple has provided a relatively easy way to disable them on external displays while leaving them on the main display. And since Apple provides a switch in Settings, there’s no need to go back into macOS recovery to disable the feature if you want to turn it off, which is very handy.

Would you consider disabling the privacy indicators on your Mac’s external display?