Microsoft has reworked a lot of interfaces in Windows 11, and it’s all for good. Not only is it better aesthetically, but it’s also more user-friendly and simplified. But when you’ve gotten used to a certain way of doing things, it takes time to adjust to something new.
The same is the case with Windows 11. The updated interfaces can make it confusing to find the settings. Whether you’re transitioning from Windows 10 to 11 or just new with computers, it doesn’t matter. Managing your microphone settings is a piece of cake in Windows 11. In fact, it’s easier than ever to enable/ disable your microphone as it isn’t buried too deep in settings.
Enable or Disable Microphone for All Apps in One Click
Enabling or disabling your microphone entirely is just a matter of a couple of clicks in Windows 11.
Open the Settings app on your system. Either click the ‘Windows’ icon from the taskbar and click the ‘Settings’ icon from the Start menu. Or use the ‘Windows + i’ keyboard shortcut.
Then, go to ‘Privacy & Security’ from the navigation menu on the left.
Scroll down to App permissions and click ‘Microphone’.
To disable microphone entirely, turn off the toggle for ‘Microphone access’.
To enable it, just turn on the toggle again.
It’ll enable or disable complete microphone access for all apps, no matter which microphone device you’re using. You can also disable certain microphone devices entirely if you want to.
How to Disable or Enable a Certain Microphone Device Only
From the settings app, go to ‘System’ settings.
Then, click the option for ‘Sound’.
Scroll down to ‘Input’. The list of microphones available for use will appear there. Click on the microphone you want to disable.
If you can’t find it, click the downward arrow next to ‘Choose a device for speaking or recording’ to expand the options.
Now, from the microphone-specific options, click ‘Don’t Allow’ to disable access to the particular microphone device.
To turn it back on right then and there, click ‘Allow’.
But if you go back from microphone settings to the previous menu or want to access the device later at some time, you’d find that you can’t access the options for the device from under Input.
Instead, scroll down and click ‘All Sound devices’.
Then, find and click the device that you want to enable again under ‘Input devices’.
Options for the device will open. Click ‘Allow’ to turn it back on.
How to Disable Microphone for Apps Only
Instead of entirely disabling your microphone, you can prevent certain apps from accessing it. From Microphone privacy settings, you can choose which apps can access your microphone. From the Settings app, go to Privacy & Security and select ‘Microphone’ under App permissions once again.
You can either turn off the toggle for all Microsoft store apps entirely.
You can also turn off the microphone for individual apps to prevent them from accessing the microphone by turning off the toggle switch next to the app name on the Microphone settings page.
You’ll notice that the list doesn’t include all the apps on your system. It only includes the apps from Microsoft.
To disable microphone access for third-party desktop apps, scroll down and turn off the toggle ‘Let desktop apps access your microphone’. When it comes to desktop apps in Windows 11, you cannot enable/ disable the microphone for them individually.
Turn on the toggle again from this screen to enable access to the microphone for desktop apps.
Sometimes, we don’t want any apps to be able to access our microphone at all. Other times, we don’t want our system to be able to access certain microphone devices. There are also times when we don’t want only certain app or types of apps to have access to our microphone. No matter which of these situations you find yourselves in, Windows 11 makes it straightforward to manage our microphone according to our preferences.
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