Release Notes

• Using the term “Settings” instead of “Preferences” on macOS Ventura and later.
• Fixes a crash that could happen when connecting/disconnecting a USB hub.

Improved compatibility with macOS Ventura

Added option to turn off camera activity notifications on Apple Silicon Macs running macOS Big Sur and Monterey. Due to a bug in these macOS versions, the built-in camera may sometimes be incorrectly reported as active for a short moment. This bug has already been fixed in macOS Ventura.

We’ve added a workaround for a bug of macOS Monterey on Apple Silicon Macs, where the system sometimes falsely reports the camera as being active for a short moment (FB9878206).

Re-enabled camera detection of built-in FaceTime camera on Apple Silicon based Macs running macOS Monterey.

The app is now a universal binary running natively on both Apple silicon and Intel-based Macs.

Note regarding FaceTime Camera on M1 Macs

Due to a bug in macOS Big Sur the operating system falsely reports the built-in FaceTime camera of the latest Apple Silicon based MacBook Air and MacBook Pro always as active, even if the camera is not in use at all. We have already reported this bug to Apple and are hoping that Apple will fix this in a future macOS update. For the time being Micro Snitch considers the camera of these models as unsupported. The detection of microphone usage is not affected by this issue.

• Fixed a bug in the software update mechanism that caused a crash after downloading an update (only affects Micro Snitch 1.3). To work around this, updating will automatically direct you to the download page in your web browser. After downloading from there, please replace the currently installed version of Micro Snitch. We apologize for the inconvenience.
• Fixed background color of welcome window when running in Dark Mode on macOS Mojave.

• Added support for Dark Mode on macOS Mojave.
• Fixed the image in Micro Snitch’s overlay appearing blurry on macOS Mojave.
• Fixed a crash when disabling the activity log.

• Micro Snitch is now available in more languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese (both simplified and traditional).
• The announcement popover and the overlay now work properly with the new “Automatically hide and show the menu bar” setting in OS X El Capitan.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the overlay would not animate to the screen’s corner after being dragged around.
• Micro Snitch now requires OS X El Capitan.

Fixed an issue on OS X El Capitan where Micro Snitch mistakenly displayed a message about some Mac’s FaceTime HD Cameras not being compatible with OS X Yosemite.

Fixed an issue where Micro Snitch’s menu bar icon was empty right after launch if no devices were connected to the computer.

About support for FaceTime HD camera on newer Macs

There’s a bug in OS X Yosemite that prevents Micro Snitch from correctly detecting the activity of the FaceTime HD Camera on some newer Mac notebooks. We contacted Apple about this and they resolved this issue in the preview version of OS X El Capitan. Note that Micro Snitch’s ability to detect and report on your Mac’s microphone activity is NOT affected by this issue.

When OS X El Capitan will be released this fall, Micro Snitch will work correctly with the affected Macs.

This version of Micro Snitch will show a short message explaining the situation when running on an affected Mac.

For more information, please refer to this FAQ: Does Micro Snitch work with every Mac’s built-in camera and microphone?

Notifications

Micro Snitch now shows notifications when devices become active or inactive. You can also enable notifications when devices are connected or disconnected.

Accessibility

Micro Snitch now plays nicely with the accessibility features built into OS X, like VoiceOver.

• Notifications: Micro Snitch uses OS X notifications to announce activity. These notifications are read by VoiceOver automatically.
• Show current activity: By pressing a new, configurable hotkey, Micro Snitch shows the current microphone or camera activity textually, which VoiceOver reads automatically. This text is shown in a non-activating window that closes after a few seconds, meaning that the VoiceOver cursor stays where it was and you don’t lose focus.
• Overlay: The overlay that is shown during microphone or camera activity now reads the current activity when selected using the VoiceOver cursor. When it is selected, you can also close the overlay using the Escape key.
• Menu bar: When selecting Micro Snitch’s menu extra using the VoiceOver cursor, it now reads the current activity.

Note: Because Micro Snitch is a non-activating App, its windows – including the overlay – appear as system windows. They can be selected by bringing up the VoiceOver Application Chooser by pressing VO-F1-F1, then navigating into the “System Dialogs” section.

Fixed incorrect reporting of camera activity on some Macs

A bug in OS X Yosemite prevents Micro Snitch from reliably showing the activity of the built-in camera on some newer Mac notebook models. This may have caused Micro Snitch to either not detect when the camera was being used, or to show the camera as being used even after it was turned off. This update of Micro Snitch shows the built-in camera on these notebook models as unsupported and will not show any activity for them. We are in contact with Apple about this issue and hope to be able to support these cameras soon.

Note that this issue does not affect Micro Snitch’s ability to detect and report on your Mac’s microphone activity.

Thanks to our awesome users who sent us bug reports, we know this issue affects the following Mac computers, but this list may not be complete:

• 12-inch MacBook with Retina display
• 13-inch MacBook Air (Mid 2013 and newer)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display
• 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (Late 2013 and newer)

For more information, please refer to this FAQ: Does Micro Snitch work with every Mac’s built-in camera and microphone?

Improved alert notifying about unsupported devices

When connecting a device that Micro Snitch doesn’t support because it cannot be observed reliably, the alert that appears now provides a link to more detailed information about the incompatibility: Does Micro Snitch work with any audio or video device I can connect to my Mac?

Micro Snitch – Know when someone spies on you!

Micro Snitch operates in the background to monitor microphone and camera activity. If any application starts recording audio or video, Micro Snitch will tell you about it.

Unobtrusive menu bar item

• Allows you to see at a glance if a microphone or camera is in use.
• When clicked, shows a list of active and inactive devices.
• Very easy on the CPU.

Overlay

• Appears when a microphone or camera is used by any app.
• Clearly visible in the center of the screen before it moves to a corner to get out of your way while still reminding you that audio or video is being recorded.
• Stays visible even if a screensaver is active or the screen is locked.
• Can be dismissed if you expect the microphone or camera to be active (e.g. during video chats) and appears again automatically the next time an app starts recording.

Logging

• Allows you to see if a microphone or camera was active while you were away from your Mac.
• Logs to Console as well as a separate file.

Known Limitations

Micro Snitch was tested with as many different Mac computers and audio/video devices as we could get our hands on. The limitations we found are documented in the “Compatibility” section of the Micro Snitch FAQ, but there may be other compatibility issues that are not yet known. We recommend that you download and use Micro Snitch in demo mode before purchasing it to make sure it works correctly with your devices.