Why have the mic on all the time?
Windows 11 - Microphone icon in system tray
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Anonymous
Hello.
I was wondering, is there any way to completely get rid of the microphone icon on the system tray without including adding it onto the "Show hidden icons"?
It's really annoying having that.
Windows for home | Windows 11 | Settings
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(259.20000000000005, 65%, 35%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EJ%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
JosephT71 9,220 Reputation points2022-06-17T05:34:19+00:00 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.
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Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points2022-06-17T05:27:28+00:00 Disable the mic in the sound settings when not using it and the icon goes away.
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JosephT71 9,220 Reputation points
2022-06-17T05:17:14+00:00 It's there because some software is using the mic --- maybe it's Cortana listening in the background for you to ask for something.
You cannot hide the mic icon, so go and actually figure out what software is using the mic on your computer or you enable "listen to this device" somwhere on your computer.
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Anonymous
2022-06-16T22:43:40+00:00 it never goes away. Has nothing to do with safety and it literally covers my toolbar which makes it impossible to see what is in the corner of the screen.