NotchMindYou’re in a call, you’ve switched to another window to look something up, and someone asks you a question. Now you need to unmute, and the call is three windows away. Here’s how to mute and unmute quickly in each app, and how to do it from anywhere.
The built-in shortcuts
| App | Mute or unmute |
|---|---|
| Zoom | ⌘ ⇧ A |
| Microsoft Teams | ⌘ ⇧ M |
| Google Meet | ⌘ D |
The catch: by default, each one only works while that app, or the Meet tab, is the one in front. Switch to your notes and the shortcut does nothing.
Make Zoom’s shortcut work everywhere
Zoom lets you make its shortcuts global:
- Open Zoom and click your profile picture, then Settings.
- Choose Keyboard Shortcuts.
- Next to Mute/Unmute My Audio, turn on Enable Global Shortcut.
Now ⌘ ⇧ A works whichever app you’re in, as long as you’re in a Zoom meeting. Teams and Meet don’t offer the same switch.
Mute every call app at once
A different approach is to mute the microphone itself, so it doesn’t matter which app the call is in.
NotchMind, which I make, does this from the notch. When Zoom, Teams, FaceTime, Slack, WhatsApp or a browser tab with Google Meet starts using your microphone, the notch shows the call: how long it has run, whether your camera is on, and a Mute button. Clicking it mutes the microphone for every app, so it works the same in all of them.
Two details that matter in practice:
- You can’t get stuck on mute. If you hang up while muted, NotchMind turns the microphone back on afterwards, so your next call doesn’t start silent.
- It never opens your microphone. It only asks macOS which app is using it.
See calls in the notch for the setup. Some microphones can’t be muted from software; then the notch says so and you use the call’s own button.
Which to use
- Only ever on Zoom: turn on Zoom’s global shortcut.
- On Teams or Meet: use their shortcut, and click back to the call first.
- On different apps all week: mute at the microphone, from the notch or a similar tool.