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

isightmacos

How do I find out which application has the camera open on an iMac (Running Leopard)? The green light is on indicating the camera is in use as well as photo booth can't connect to the camera. The only other apps running are Safari and Finder (as best as I can tell), neither of which seem to be using the camera.

If this was Windows, I'd use Process Explorer, what can I do on a Mac to see who has a particular device open?

EDIT: using the suggestion of NSD, I nearly have a solution with

    lsof | grep "USBVDC"

That shows all the apps trying to use the camera, but not the one that actually owns it. Probably close enough.

Best Answer

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"
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