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Allow the camera and microphone in Safari (Mac, iPhone, iPad)

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Safari treats each website as a guest that has to ask before using your camera or microphone. If a video call page shows a black picture or a muted microphone in Safari, the website's permission is probably set to Deny, or Safari was told to deny every site. This article shows where those settings live on a Mac and on an iPhone or iPad, and what else to check.

How Safari decides

Safari has three answers for every website and for each device: Ask, Deny and Allow. Ask means the site has to show a permission prompt and wait for you. Deny means the site is refused without any prompt, which is why a denied site simply fails. Allow means the site can use the device whenever it wants, which is rarely the best choice for a site you do not use daily. For sites you have not configured, a separate default applies, described below.

Apple notes that these camera and microphone settings are privacy-sensitive and are not shared between your Apple devices. A choice you made on your Mac does not carry over to your iPhone, so a call that works on one can still need a separate permission on the other.

On a Mac: fix one website

  1. Open Safari and open the page that needs the camera or microphone, so that it appears in the list of open websites.
  2. Choose Safari from the menu bar, then Settings, then click Websites.
  3. In the left list, click Camera (and repeat for Microphone).
  4. Find the website under Currently Open Websites or Configured Websites. Use the pop-up menu next to it and choose Ask or Allow instead of Deny.
  5. Go back to the page and reload it. The site can now ask, or use the device, depending on what you chose.

At the bottom of the same list, a pop-up menu labelled When visiting other websites sets the default for every site you have not configured. If you want to be asked every time, leave it on Ask. If a site that you never touched is refused, check that this default is not set to Deny.

On an iPhone or iPad: fix one website

  1. Open the page in Safari.
  2. Tap the Page Menu button in the address bar (the small button at the left end of the bar, labelled with letters or a page icon depending on the iOS version).
  3. Tap Website Settings. Below Website Settings For you see Camera and Microphone, and the site's current choice.
  4. Tap the one you want to change and choose Ask or Allow.
  5. Reload the page, then try the call again.

Apple's documentation describes these steps but also notes that button names and positions differ somewhat between iOS versions and regions. If you do not see Website Settings directly, open the page menu and look for a more-options entry that leads to it.

On an iPhone or iPad: change the default for all sites

Open the Settings app, tap Apps, and choose Safari. In the section for settings that apply to websites you will find Camera and Microphone (and Location). Tap each one and choose Ask, Deny or Allow. Apple's wording is that this decides whether Safari websites can use the device without asking you first. On older versions of iOS the Safari settings sit directly under Settings, not under Apps, so look for Safari in the main list.

Separately, Settings then Privacy and Security then Camera or Microphone shows which apps have asked for those devices. Apps appear there; this list is how you control other browsers or call apps installed on the phone, not the per-website choices inside Safari.

When the Mac itself blocks the browser

Some other browsers need permission from the operating system, and you control that on a Mac under the Apple menu, System Settings, Privacy and Security, then Camera or Microphone. Each app in that list has a switch. The list shows only apps that have already asked to use the device, so a browser that has never asked does not appear yet. Apple points out that to control a website in Safari you use Safari's own Settings and Websites pane instead. If you use Safari and only Safari, the website settings above are the ones that matter, but if the same call works in Safari and fails in another browser, check that other browser's switch.

If Safari still ignores your choice

Screen sharing, notifications and clearing data

Two related behaviours surprise people. First, Apple says clearing Safari's history also removes the permissions that websites were granted for location and notifications. Clearing history is therefore a way to make Safari forget some sites' choices, but it does not replace checking the Camera and Microphone lists. Second, screen sharing from a web page depends on the version of Safari, and web pages on iPhone and iPad have long been unable to share the screen. If your goal is to share the screen, run the screen share check to see what your version supports.

Good privacy habits in Safari

Prefer Ask over Allow for the defaults, because Ask keeps you in the loop. Review the list of configured websites from time to time and delete or set to Ask the ones you no longer use. Do not accept a request from a page that you did not just open for a call. Apple devices show an indicator while the camera or microphone is in use (on a Mac, the Control Center recording indicator is one of them), which is a reliable cue that something is recording.

About ChatLite

ChatLite runs in Safari like any other site: set Camera and Microphone for chatlite.net to Ask, answer the prompt when you start a call, and use the free tools on this site if something looks wrong.

References

Official documentation used to check this article. Pages are maintained by their owners and may change.

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