Right before a Zoom meeting, my microphone suddenly stopped working — but only in Zoom. It worked perfectly fine in other apps like Voice Memos and FaceTime, which made the problem even more confusing. Because of that, I knew the microphone itself wasn’t broken.
At first, I thought it was just a temporary Zoom glitch. I closed the app and opened it again, but the microphone still showed no input. Restarting Zoom alone didn’t help.
Next, I checked my Mac’s system settings. Under Privacy & Security → Microphone, I noticed that Zoom no longer had microphone permission. I’m not sure when it changed, but it was turned off. I enabled it again and restarted Zoom completely, not just the meeting window.
Inside Zoom’s audio settings, I also manually selected the correct microphone instead of letting Zoom choose automatically. As soon as I did that, the microphone started working normally again.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to reinstall Zoom or restart my Mac. If this happens right before a meeting, checking microphone permissions first can save a lot of time and stress.
