Being somewhat paranoid, I would like to mute my laptop’s microphone most of the time, unmuting it only when needed. I could go into audio settings and turn the volume all the way down, but then it’s cumbersome to unmute, and half the time I forget I’ve done muted the microphone and spend a panicked minute or two trying to get sound working on a call. Is there a way to get a simple microphone indicator on the status bar, one that I could simply click to change the mute status?
You can also use pavucontrol to mute the mic
Can you check in pavucontrol that the audio mute mutes the microphone as well as the audio output?
I do not have a built in mic. I use the mic of my external webcam. So I removed my comment and let the OP test your extensions.
If you’re on GNOME, one other way to quickly mute/unmute the mic is via keyboard shortcuts, and with the visual feedback you get to check the status as well. You can set a custom keyboard shortcut in GNOME Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → View and Customize Shortcuts.
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