Windows 11 - Microphone icon in system tray

Disable the mic in the sound settings when not using it and the icon goes away.

You completely missed the point of this thread --- they wanted to keep the mic but hide the icon.

Which is impossible because it is illegal in many states in the US to secretly record a conversation without the other person's permission. So Microsoft made sure that there is no way to hide the mic icon. Therefore I put these sentences in big fonts.

So if the mic icon is there, then the end-user is either using the mic themselves or Cortana (or similar some other software is listening in the background). Or the enable "listen to this device" because they read it somewhere on some forum.

You seem to be tarded or something, the world doesen't revolve murica and your privacy issues you seem to have. Stop being plain stupid and don't answer with this stupid **** if you doesen't have answer to the question, There are literally thousands other things there could be other than your first stupid thought of privacy and murica. Like the whole text is taking up the place making it impossible to click and see anything behind it. But your brain might not be able to understand that

Hi, I managed to get rid of it. If you install Windows 10 instead of 11, there's a period where you can switch between the two sort of, and it also lets you switch some of the features. I have the old windows 10 taskbar which includes the microphone icon being gone. It's not fun but it fixes the issue.

You cannot get rid of it because it is a safety issue.

It's similar to webcam indication light that tells you the webcam is operating.

The only people asking to get rid of the microphone icon is people who are trying to secretly record somebody's else conversation (which is against the law in a lot of states).

What are you on about brother, do you have experience or something since you're suggesting something like that?