Step 1 — Establish the baseline

Open the mic tester and press Start. What happens next sorts the problem into one of four buckets:

• The meter moves and you can hear a recording — the capture path is fine; your problem is inside the app that’s failing (skip to step 6).
• A permission prompt appeared and you allowed it, but the meter is flat — signal isn’t arriving: steps 3–5.
• The browser blocked access or never asked — permission layer: step 2.
• ‘No microphone found’ — the OS sees no input device at all: step 4.

Step 2 — The permission layer (browser)

Browsers gate the mic per origin. If you hit “Block” once — by accident, or months ago — the site is denied silently forever after.

• Chrome / Edge: lock (or tune) icon left of the URL → Microphone → Allow → reload.
• Firefox: lock icon → remove the block on “Use the microphone” → reload.
• Safari: Safari menu → Settings for This Website → Microphone → Allow.

While you’re here: if the page isn’t https://, the browser won’t capture at all — that’s by design.

Step 3 — The permission layer (OS)

Even with the browser allowed, the OS can refuse to hand it the device.

• Windows: Settings → Privacy & security → Microphone. Both toggles matter: the master “Microphone access” and “Let apps access your microphone” / the per-app list for desktop apps.
• macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → the browser must be ticked. If it’s already ticked and the mic is still dead, untick/retick and restart the browser — the grant occasionally goes stale.
• Linux: check that PipeWire/PulseAudio sees the source (pavucontrol → Input Devices) and that nothing grabbed it exclusively.

After changing OS settings, fully restart the browser — not just the tab.

Step 4 — The device layer

• Confirm the OS sees an input at all (Windows: Sound settings → Input; macOS: Sound → Input tab). If the list is empty, no app can fix it — check the physical connection next.
• USB mics: try a different port, skip hubs, watch for the device’s power LED. Front-panel 3.5mm jacks on desktops are frequently unwired — use the rear.
• Bluetooth headsets: see the FAQ — the mic only exists in call mode.
• Wrong input selected? Both the OS default and the browser’s per-site device choice apply — our device picker lists what the browser sees.

Step 5 — The mute layer

A flat-zero meter with a live stream is almost always a mute somewhere:

• Hardware: headset inline switches, boom-arm up-mutes, keyboard mic-mute keys (F4/F8 with a mic icon on many laptops — toggled by accident constantly), physical shutter sliders on some webcams.
• OS: input volume at 0, or a muted input device in the mixer.
• Browser/tab: Chrome lets you mute a site’s audio from the tab strip; that affects playback, not capture — but site-level mic toggles in the lock-icon menu do affect capture.

Step 6 — The app layer

If the tester works but Zoom/Meet/Discord doesn’t: the app has its own input selector and its own mute. Check its audio settings for the right device, its mic level indicator, and whether “original audio”/push-to-talk modes are interfering. In Discord specifically, the input mode (voice activity vs push-to-talk) and sensitivity slider produce “dead mic” reports daily.

Step 7 — Hardware, last

Only after the software layers are ruled out: try the mic on another computer. Dead on two machines is hardware — cable, capsule, or ADC. Dead on one is that machine’s settings. A mic that fails intermittently when the cable moves is a cable, not a settings problem. And if a headset works as headphones but never as a mic, re-read the Bluetooth FAQ before buying anything.

Frequently asked questions

My mic works in other apps but not in the browser — why?

That's almost always the browser's own permission layer, not the mic. The site needs per-origin mic access (lock icon → Allow), the browser itself needs OS-level mic permission, and on Windows the desktop-app toggle (Settings → Privacy → Microphone → let desktop apps access) gates Chrome/Firefox separately from Store apps. Any one of the three being off produces 'works elsewhere, dead here'.

The browser never even asks for permission — what's wrong?

Three possibilities: the site was already blocked (check the lock icon in the address bar), the browser itself lacks OS mic permission so it never gets that far, or — rare — the page isn't on HTTPS. Check the lock icon first; if it shows 'blocked', flip it to Allow and reload.

Mic shows up but nobody hears me in calls — same problem?

Different layer. If this site's meter moves when you speak, the capture path is fine and the problem is downstream: the call app's own input selector, its mute state, or push-to-talk. Apps remember their own device choice — a laptop that swapped from a USB mic to the built-in will keep feeding the app whatever it last selected.

Why did my mic stop working after a Windows/macOS update?

OS updates are notorious for resetting privacy toggles. Windows updates have flipped the 'Let apps access your microphone' master switch off; macOS upgrades occasionally drop per-app microphone grants. Recheck both layers before anything else — it takes two minutes and fixes a surprising share of post-update failures.

Bluetooth headset works for music but the mic is dead — normal?

Yes, and it's a protocol limitation, not a fault. Bluetooth's stereo media profile (A2DP) can't carry a mic signal; the mic only exists in the call profile (HFP/HSP), which is mono and lower quality. If the headset is stuck in A2DP, the OS may not expose a mic at all. Toggle the headset's call mode, or select 'Headset' rather than 'Headphones' in OS sound settings.