MicKey

With most school and work activities moving online, many have found the need to take better control over their camera and mouse to avoid embarrassing incidents. MicKey is a lightweight utility designed to help you toggle the mic on and off across the system with just one button.

The application is portable, so you do not need to bother with installation or configuration, but simply decompress in the desired location and launch. It is worth mentioning that, during our tests, the application took more than a couple of seconds to launch and you can access it from the System Tray.

The tool comes with a very small interface, which is not a big setback, considering its nature and role. The GUI is where you can set a global hotkey for toggling the mic on and off, an action that you can also complete manually. Take note that the tool is designed to always be on top of other active program windows.

You will be happy to learn that the tool displays whether the microphone is on or off with representative colors, namely green for unmuted and red for muted. You can easily determine whether you accidentally left the mic on when you are being interrupted by a loved one or a phone call, for instance.

Even though the program does not include a launch with Windows option, the developer provides the steps on how to do that. You need to launch the Run dialog and type shell:startup to be able to access the Startup folder. Here you can simply add a new shortcut to the application's executable.

In the eventuality that you regularly need to use VoIP or online calls and you want to make sure that the mic does not place you in unwanted situations, then perhaps you can consider giving MicKey a try.