Stop Using Camera Covers for Your MacBook
If you’re worried about your MacBook’s webcam spying on you, you might be tempted to buy a cheap plastic camera cover. You can get them for as little as $5, but you really should stay away from them. The cons far outweigh the pros.
Why You Should Avoid Cheap Camera Cases
When something is as expensive and difficult to repair as a MacBook, don’t use cheap accessories that can damage it . This cheap camera cover may give you some peace of mind, but it also carries the risk of a repair bill: with the cover in place, you could damage your MacBook’s screen when you slam it shut. Apple makes the MacBook as thin and light as possible, and as a result, its fault tolerance is pretty low. If you insert a piece of plastic between the trackpad and display, you could damage the screen and trackpad if you’re not careful.
Repairing this kind of damage is expensive, even if you have an insurance plan like AppleCare+, and it’s not worth the risk. (Sliding plastic covers also tend to scratch the screen.) That cheap $5 accessory isn’t useful enough to risk damaging a good laptop that costs hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Especially when there are better options.
What to use to close your MacBook’s camera
There are other ways to prevent your MacBook’s camera from being used without your permission, and none of them will harm your laptop. If you really want to use a physical lid, you should consider connecting your MacBook to an external display and leaving the laptop in clamshell mode. Thus, its camera is always closed and you can use a laptop with a large screen. If this is not an option, you can use duct tape to cover the camera. It’s more of a permanent solution – no one wants to peel and peel tape every time you make a video call – so only consider tape if you’re not going to be using a webcam and can stick it to your screen. .
However, most people don’t need this because there are several software solutions on your MacBook that help make sure your camera isn’t spying on you. The easiest thing you can do is notice the LED next to the webcam on your MacBook – this is a security feature built into your Mac and it’s very hard, if not impossible, to get around: when the light is on, your webcam is active. You can also view permissions for your camera by going to System Preferences > Privacy & Security > Camera and deny access to your camera to apps that don’t need it. A similar setting is also available on your browser’s settings page, so be sure to turn off camera access for sites you don’t use. Finally, you can download apps like OverSight that will alert you the moment you use the camera on your Mac.