Mac – How to disable the iSight camera on Mac OS 10.6

cameraisightmac

I want to disable my camera. Have it stop working. Have all applications that can use the camera to be unable to use the camera anymore. I would cut it out physically from the device if that wouldn't void the warranty and wouldn't be so brutal and barbaric, but I'd like a software solution. Deleting /System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeUSBVDCDigitizer.component doesn't help. What can I do?

Best Answer

The most absolute way to ensure that iSight will stop working would be to open the macbook up, but I understand not wanting to do so.

I think what you are looking for is the following (type this in the terminal):

sudo launchctl unload -w com.apple.IIDCAssistant.plist

Source: "NSA's Guide to Hardening OSX 10.6"

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Macos – How to find which app is using iSight (the iMac camera)

My best guess would be that iChat Agent was running in the background.

If not, then try:

lsof | grep -i "AppleCamera"

In previous versions of OS X (before Yosemite), this should be used:

lsof | grep -i "iSight"

Macos – How to disable iSight auto adjustments

Doing some work with openCV too and went for the non technical implementation: some tape and black card, and simply covered the light sensor to the left of the camera.

Works perfectly!

The iGlasses solution doesn't address the problem as the brightness/contrast adjustments are performed by the hardware (i think) so it will affect the iGlasses input source and thus output. I imagine you can fiddle with settings to try and alleviate this effect as much as possible although will not combat it completely.

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Macos – How to find which app is using iSight (the iMac camera)

Macos – How to disable iSight auto adjustments

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