Mic test

Yes. Nothing to install, no account, no limit on how often you run it. It works in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, on desktop and on phones.

No. Every measurement happens in your browser, and the eight second clip stays in memory on your own machine. Nothing reaches a server, and closing the tab discards it.

Five things cause this, and a broken mic is the rarest. The browser never got permission. The wrong input is selected. Another app grabbed the device, usually Zoom or Discord. Or it’s muted in your system settings. This test tells you which one you’ve got.

Work from the outside in. If this page can’t see the device at all, the fault is in the cable or the driver. If it sees the device, reports it unmuted, and the meter still doesn’t move while you speak, the hardware is gone. Confirm with a different port, then a different cable, then a different computer. Silent everywhere means broken. Working elsewhere means a setting on this machine.

On a computer, click the padlock in the address bar, set Microphone to Allow, then reload. On an iPhone there is no padlock, and the browser itself needs permission before any site can ask: open the Settings app, scroll down to Brave, Safari or Chrome, and turn Microphone on. On Android, use the browser menu, then Site settings, then Microphone. If you refused earlier the browser remembers, and won’t ask again until you change it there.

Peaks around minus eighteen dBFS while you talk normally. Quieter and people turn you up, which brings your room noise with it. Louder and the peaks flatten into distortion that can’t be undone.

Almost always the input slider in your operating system. Raise it, check it isn’t muted, and move a little closer. That slider costs more than people expect: halving it loses six decibels, and a fifth of the way up loses about fourteen. That’s the difference between being easy to hear and being asked to repeat yourself.

A steady low buzz is interference from your mains power, so closing a window won’t help. This test doesn’t measure it, because browsers filter the low frequencies out of the capture before a page can see them. You can spot it yourself on the frequency plot above: a steady bright line low down that never moves is buzz, where room noise drifts. Try another USB port, unplug a nearby charger, and move the cable away from power leads.

On Windows: Settings, System, Sound, then pick your input under Choose a device for speaking. On a Mac: System Settings, Sound, Input. Both show a live level bar, which confirms the mic works. Neither tells you how you actually sound, which is what the recording here is for.

Yes. Pair the headset first, then pick it under Input. Most Bluetooth headsets drop to a low quality mono mode the moment the mic is used, so the sample rate here may look low. That comes from the headset.

Open this page in your phone's browser and allow the prompt. Everything works the same as on a desktop: talk normally and the verdict fills in as you go. Android and iPhone both work, in Chrome, Safari and Firefox. Hold the phone where you normally would, because distance changes your level more than any setting.

Press Hear yourself above and your voice plays back live as you talk. Wear headphones for it. On speakers it loops straight back into the mic and howls within a second or two. To hear how you sound to other people rather than to yourself, record a clip and play that back instead.

Three causes: a sample rate mismatch with the app you’re in, heavy noise suppression stripping your voice along with the noise, or a machine under enough load to drop audio. Checking the sample rate here rules out the first.