Need to take a call on your Mac in a busy environment? Apple’s built-in microphone modes can help. Here’s what they do and how to access them.

How to Access Mic Modes on a Mac

You’d be forgiven for missing macOS’ built-in microphone modes since they only show up when your microphone is actively in use. This means that you already need to be using your microphone in order to switch to a different mode (other than standard, which is enabled by default).

So to get started, you’ll need to start doing whatever it is you need your microphone for in the first place. This means accepting that invite to start a call, or opening an app like Voice Memos to trigger your microphone.

As soon as your microphone becomes active (like when you grant a website permission to use it), you should notice an orange icon appear in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click it, and you’ll see the microphone modes that are available to you, underneath the name of your microphone.

macOS Microphone Modes menu in the menu bar.

If you’re in a video call and you’ve granted access to your webcam, note that the icon will be green and the microphone settings will be nested below the different webcam modes.

Roger the cat taking a webcam call with Microphone Mode settings highlighted.

You can switch between them by clicking on each.

What the Mic Modes Do

Standard mode is regular old microphone input, which your microphone should default to. It’s not entirely unprocessed since your Mac will touch up the audio slightly. Here’s a waveform view of what Apple’s Voice Memos app picks up in Standard mode:

Waveform view in "Standard" Microphone Mode on a Mac.

The peaks are me saying “testing, testing” in an environment where there is construction happening outside of my house (which explains why the recording isn’t registering silence). There are two other modes to pick from.

Voice Isolation will attempt to minimize background noise, depending on the situation. For example, here’s a waveform view in Voice Memos with Voice Isolation enabled in the exact same noisy environment as above:

Waveform view of Voice Isolation Microphone Mode on a Mac.

Note how Voice Isolation does a great job of keeping your microphone quiet when you’re not speaking. There’s one more mode to choose, and that’s Wide Spectrum. This mode doesn’t work within the Voice Memos app (it just won’t show up) but instead is designed to let in a wider array of sounds than Standard alone.

You might want to use this if you’re using your MacBook for a meeting and there are multiple people in the room who need to talk. It’s an ideal choice if your environment is quiet since you won’t have to worry about background noise filtering in.

Microphone Mode Availability

Microphone modes are available on all Mac models from 2018 onwards, running macOS Monterey or newer. They also work with third-party external microphones. We tested an old USB microphone and once we’d selected the input under System Settings > Sound > Input it worked a treat.

One thing that isn’t guaranteed is app availability. While Voice Isolation works in Voice Memos and web apps like Google Meet support all modes, we couldn’t select microphone modes while recording from the internal microphone using open-source audio editor Audacity, so your mileage may vary.

If you use Windows, you’ll be pleased to know that you can also reduce background microphone noise on a PC too. Otherwise, don’t forget to check out your Mac’s built-in Dictation feature (which is arguably the best thing you can do with a Mac microphone).