Mute your microphone mid-recording

You can mute your microphone at any point during a recording and unmute it later. The recording keeps running, so you don't need to stop or restart the take.

While you're muted, the video and the timer carry on as normal. The microphone just records silence.

Mute and unmute

Use whichever of these is closest to hand:

• The control bar. Click the microphone button on the control bar on the page you're recording. Hover over it to see whether it will say "Mute microphone" or "Unmute microphone".
• The recorder tab. If you're recording from the recorder tab, click the microphone button in the bar at the top of that tab.
• A keyboard shortcut. Press Alt+Shift+M (Command+Shift+M on a Mac) to switch between muted and unmuted. This is handy when you need to cough and can't reach the mouse.

When you're muted, the microphone button shows a crossed-out microphone and the live sound-level wave disappears. When you're unmuted again, the wave comes back.

You can change the shortcut, or check what it's currently set to, in Keyboard shortcuts, and how to change them.

Things to know

• The shortcut only works during a recording. Pressing it before you start, or after you stop, does nothing.
• Muting is not pausing. Muting silences your voice only. To stop the video and the timer as well, pause the recording.
• The microphone button is greyed out if you started without a microphone. If the microphone was switched off in the extension popup before you started, you can't turn it on mid-recording. Stop, switch it on in the popup, then record again. See Record your voice and pick a microphone.

If you muted by mistake

Unmuting only affects the audio from that point on. Sound you missed while muted isn't recorded, so you can't get it back. If you forgot to unmute, you can record that part again, or clean up the take in the editor.

To silence a section after recording instead, see Silence a section without cutting the picture.

Related articles

• Record your voice and pick a microphone
• The control bar on the page you are recording
• Keyboard shortcuts, and how to change them
• Start, stop, pause and resume a recording
• My recording has no audio