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iSight Disabler

Techslaves.org’s iSight Disabler is an AppleScript that automates the process of disabling and enabling the iSight USB driver in OS X. The goal is to prevent applications from using the built-in USB iSight found in Macbooks, Macbook Pros and iMacs. I’ve seen various queries online about how to disable the iSight and while the answer was already hanging around, there wasn’t a simple way to disable and enable the iSight without going to the command line.

The gist of what I’m doing with the AppleScript is changing the permissions on various driver files that are used to provide applications with access to the iSight. The list of files that are “managed” by iSight Disabler has grown since it’s initial release for Tiger where disabling only a single driver was enough. With Leopard and subsequently with Snow Leopard, more driver files must be acted upon by iSight Disabler to ensure the iSight is fully disabled.

When you click “Disable” it sets the permissions on the file(s) to a-rwx, ——— or 000, whatever way you want to look at it. When you click “Enable” the iSight sets permissions as rwxr-xr-x on the file.

To install the iSight Disabler AppleScript, place it in /Users/You/Library/Scripts/ and activate the script menu in your menu bar with the AppleScript Utility for easy access.

Screenshots

Here are a few screenshots from an old version. Nothing really changed visually since these screenshots were taken.

iSight Disabler Screenshot 1 iSight Disabler Screenshot #2

Download

iSight Disabler Version 3.5, Adds Snow Leopard Support
iSight Disabler Version 3.0, Adds Leopard Support
iSight Disabler Version 2.5, First good version for Tiger

All versions previous to 2.5 are not worth downloading due to poor handling of administrative escalation by using sudo instead of OS X’s built-in privilege escalation.

17 Comments on “iSight Disabler”

  1. 1 Disable Isight Camera said at 21:41 on April 29th, 2010:

    [...] linkazoid Think the script your looking for can be found here Just downloaded it and ran it on my MacBook Pro running 10.5.8 and it works fine. [...]

  2. 2 Craig said at 20:37 on May 4th, 2010:

    Hi,

    I’ve used iSight disabler in the past and it works great. At some point in the past I also managed to get the internal mic disabled. I assume I used the command line or maybe I destroyed the appropriate kext file but I can’t remember how I did it (and I haven’t found anything Googling yet either).

    Any chance you’ve got an “internalMIC Disabler” script that I can use to get the mic working again without reinstalling the OS?

    Thanks!

  3. 3 cense said at 20:40 on May 4th, 2010:

    Someone asked me about this before… If I had it, I’d post it!

    I looked into it for a while and it seemed to me that the audio driver was responsible for both input and output so disabling it would not only disable the mic but also the audio output (speakers, line-out) so I’m actually quite interested in how you disabled just the mic, if you can remember!

  4. 4 Ian, Melb, Australia said at 21:56 on May 5th, 2010:

    Simple and effective.

    Thank you.

  5. 5 Harry said at 01:44 on May 18th, 2010:

    Hi,, I also want to disable the iSight and use an external webcam. I’ve been racking my brains for months trying to figure out how. I’ve finally found a web cam that works on macbooks, its Dynex brand. But after pluging it in,, it only works on iChat where you can switch from iSight to the Dynex back and forth, which is not what I needed it for. I want to be able to use the Dynex web cam in random chatrooms and it won’t do that. I tried to install this iSight disabler and followed the steps to click on disable iSight when the popup came on but the Dynex cam still doesn’t work.. Any helpful would be appreciated. thanks.

  6. 6 cense said at 02:58 on May 18th, 2010:

    Hi,

    Unfortunately I don’t know anything about your Dynex webcam. Chances are it uses the same generic USB video driver as the internal iSight so when you disable the iSight, you’re disabling the Dynex as well.

  7. 7 Harry said at 04:12 on May 18th, 2010:

    Yeah your absolutely right , when click on I disable they both don’t work. The Dynex cam was refered by someone in the apple forums. They said that was one of the very few external cams that work on macs. So I went out and bought one. There has to be a way to disable only the iSight. I mean on p.c.’s that have built in webcams you can disable and use external ones, why not with a mac. Like I said I been racking my brains for a long time now trying to figure it out. It’s very frustrating.

  8. 8 Doug McNeill said at 19:38 on May 19th, 2010:

    I am trying to use this software in conjunction with a Proscope HR microscope that is usb based and I noticed that the Proscope software will still not see my microscope even though the I-Sight camera has been turned off. Any thoughts on being able to toggle through the USB ports to allow a plugged in device to be used.

    Thanks!

  9. 9 Tracy said at 19:40 on June 9th, 2010:

    Does the new version 3.5 account for the changes with the update to Quicktime? Apparently the Quicktime update disables the disabler.

  10. 10 cense said at 00:50 on June 10th, 2010:

    I’m running 10.6.3 with all the latest updates and QuickTime Version 10.0 (113). Version 3.5 successfully prevents Photo Booth from accessing the iSight, so yeah, 3.5 should work.

  11. 11 Ali Servet Donmez said at 10:52 on June 14th, 2010:

    Is there any chance that you can disable, say, only display/external iSight, but leave enabled bult-in one or viceversa? Thanks.

  12. 12 cense said at 03:01 on June 15th, 2010:

    By external iSight do you mean the Firewire iSight that Apple used to make? If so, that can be disabled separately from the built-in USB iSight but the iSight Disabler script doesn’t currently support doing so.

  13. 13 Ali Servet Donmez said at 13:29 on June 16th, 2010:

    What I actually mean is to disable either one of two available iSights when a Macbook is attacted to an external display (which has an iSight also)

  14. 14 sammy said at 15:39 on June 22nd, 2010:

    @craig @cense
    I have also disabled only my mic, in the sound settings, the ‘internal microphone’ doesnt take any input. Regardless of iSight being enabled or disabled, the mic status is the same.

    I also can’t remember how I did it, script, or file rename/delete or some setting change. I checked the Terminal commands by using the up arrow key but couldn’t find anything that indicates audio input settings.

    Please help!

  15. 15 Nusret said at 18:08 on June 24th, 2010:

    Hello. I am grateful for this script created but I have encountered a problem. Everything ran great until one day my camera didn’t work on Msn/Yahoo…. Skype, etc.

    I opened Photobooth to make sure the camera wasn’t … broken? Well, it worked in photobooth, so this isn’t worrying me too much… i would just like my camera back!

    Can anyone help? I have tried downloaing a new Script and running it… pressing enable… and still doesn’t work

    Thanks in advance, Nusret.

  16. 16 Nusret said at 21:58 on July 11th, 2010:

    Anyone here? I really need help.

  17. 17 cense said at 20:32 on July 16th, 2010:

    Have you tried checking the skype forums? Sorry, I don’t have any particular knowledge that can help you with this but if you ask on the skype forums, maybe someone there can help you.

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