Mic Test — Check Your Microphone Online

Speak, watch the meter, hear it back

This is a one-screen microphone check: allow access once, then talk. The level meter shows your RMS loudness with a peak-hold marker on a −60…0 dB scale — healthy speech peaks in the green, roughly −20 to −6 dB. The bar turns amber above −6 dB and red when the tester flags clipping. The waveform under it traces exactly what your mic is sending, so plosives, hum and clipping are visible, not just audible.

The panel also reports what the browser negotiated: sample rate, mono/stereo channel count, the negotiated echo cancellation / noise suppression / auto-gain flags, and the active device name. A stereo input gets separate L and R meters. The device picker lists every input the OS exposes — note that browsers deliberately blank device names until you grant permission.

A 60-second clip, kept local

Press Record a clip, say a sentence, stop, and play it back — that’s the closest thing to hearing yourself the way a meeting does. The file is written to a blob in this tab; there is no upload, no account, no retention. Closing the tab destroys it. For what to listen for in the playback — noise floor, clipping, channel balance, processing artifacts — see how to test a mic recording.

When it doesn’t work

The tester distinguishes the failure modes that generic advice conflates: permission denied (with per-browser re-enable steps), no device found, device busy (another app holds the mic), device unplugged mid-test, muted upstream, and flat-zero signal. Each gets its own panel with the recovery steps in order. For the full OS-level walkthrough — Windows privacy toggles, macOS microphone permission, browser restarts, hardware mute switches — use the mic not working checklist. Curious what the numbers mean? Sample rate, bit depth and channels covers them; how mic permissions actually work explains the two-layer browser+OS model; and USB vs headset vs built-in helps you pick hardware. Testing before a specific app? The walkthroughs for Zoom, Teams & Meet and Discord cover their built-in checks; if you hear your own voice arriving late, that’s monitoring latency.

Frequently asked questions

How do I test my microphone?

Press Start microphone test and click Allow when the browser asks for mic access. Speak at normal volume: the level meter should bounce up into the green (roughly −20 to −6 dB), the waveform should trace your voice, and you can record a short clip to hear exactly what a call would transmit.

Is my voice or the recording uploaded anywhere?

No — and it can't be. The whole tester runs in your browser: the mic stream feeds an in-page audio graph for metering and a MediaRecorder that writes to a local blob. This site is static files with no server-side endpoint, so there is literally nowhere to send audio. You can load the page, go offline, and everything still works.

The browser blocked my mic — how do I allow it?

The denied panel under the tester shows the exact clicks for Chrome/Edge, Firefox and Safari. The short version: click the lock icon in the address bar, set Microphone to Allow, reload. If the browser-level permission is fine but nothing arrives, the OS-level privacy toggle (Windows Settings → Privacy → Microphone, or macOS Privacy & Security) is the usual culprit — the mic not working checklist covers it in order.

Why do all my devices show as 'Microphone 1', 'Microphone 2'?

Browsers hide device names until you grant mic access — it's a privacy rule, not a bug. Press Start and allow access once; the picker repopulates with real names like 'USB Audio Device' or 'MacBook Pro Microphone'.

What sample rate and bit depth does my mic run at?

The info grid shows the negotiated sample rate (usually 48000 or 44100 Hz) and channel count. Inside the browser pipeline audio is always delivered as 32-bit float regardless of your hardware's ADC — what sample rate and bit depth actually mean explains why 48 kHz/16-bit is already more than enough for speech.

The meter stays at zero even though the mic is connected — why?

A flat line means zeros are reaching the browser: a hardware mute switch on the headset, an OS-level input mute, a tab-level mute, or the wrong input selected in the device picker are the usual causes. The tester flags sustained digital silence and the 'muted upstream' state separately so you can tell 'no signal' from 'no mic'.

Does this work on phones?

Yes — the same getUserMedia flow runs in mobile Chrome and Safari. On iOS the permission prompt appears once per site, and stereo/meter features depend on what the device exposes. Recording playback works the same way.

What does the Record button capture?

Up to 60 seconds of whatever the selected input hears, encoded by your browser's MediaRecorder (usually Opus in WebM). Press Stop, play it back in the page, or download it — the clip lives only as a local blob and disappears when you close the tab.