How to disable the built-in webcam on Windows 10 laptops

Worrying about someone spying on you? Make sure to disable the built-in webcam on your laptop if you don't even use it and here is how to can you do that.

Disabling Webcam on Windows 10 Laptop

Privacy is the most important thing that you need to protect in order to prevent your confidential information leaked out. That includes identity information, documents, photos, videos, voice, and so on. For best practices, you should turn off all sensors that you don’t use frequently on your device.

Most Windows 10 laptops come with a built-in webcam. Some laptops also have a webcam usage LED indicator to let you that the webcam is being used. However, to make sure that the webcam is completely off today, we will show how to disable the built-in webcam on your laptop.

  1. How to disable built-in webcam via Device Manager
  2. How to check the webcam status

1 How to disable built-in webcam via Device Manager

To disable a webcam on Windows 10 laptop:

  1. On your keyboard press Windows logo key + S, to open the Search dialog.
  2. Type Device Manager, click Open.
    Search for Device Manager
  3. On Device Manager, expand the Cameras device group.
  4. Right-click on the list camera device module.
  5. In this example on Surface Book, Right-click on Intel(R) AVStream Camera 2500 > Disable device.
    Disabling Webcam via Device Manager

2 How to check the webcam status

You can make sure that the webcam is already been disabled by using the built-in Camera app.

  1. Go to the Start menu
  2. On the App list find the Camera app and open it.
  3. If you have successfully disabled the camera, you will receive a message “We can’t find your camera”.
    Camera app - can't find camera