Hacking Mic Drop

Some of our users have sent us cool hacks and workarounds to extend Mic Drop’s functionality or allow it to work with unsupported audio devices.

If you build something really cool, make sure to send us a message—we ❤️ seeing what people build with Mic Drop.

Happy hacking! 🛠

Can I show a mute button in my Touch Bar?

Yes, but not directly from Mic Drop.

Based on current user feedback, API limitations in macOS, and the potential of Apple nixing the Touch Bar altogether, we don’t have any plans to support the Touch Bar.

That said, if you’re a fan, there’s a workaround that may do the trick. Use BetterTouchTool to configure a Touch Bar button that will activate your Mic Drop keyboard shortcut, and you should be good to go!

Bonus: if you want to query the mute state of Mic Drop to change the icon based on whether you’re muted or not, you can use this command to get the mute status: defaults read com.octopusthink.Mic-Drop devicesMuted.

Can I program my mouse/headset/cat to mute my mic?

Any physical button that can be mapped to a keyboard press will work. We don’t natively support hardware buttons or any shortcut that isn’t keyboard-based.

If you can map a button on your mouse, headset, or any other device to your Mic Drop keyboard shortcut that should work seamlessly. Several users have reported success using Logitech Options in order to use a button on their MX series mouse to mute and unmute Mic Drop.

If you need to use software to map a button press or key to your Mic Drop keyboard shortcut, we recommend BetterTouchTool.

Cats, as a rule, will only press keys that you don’t want pressed, so no promises there. 😼

Can I make a giant physical mute button?

You sure can! There are a number of different ways of accomplishing this, and it really depends on what you’re looking for.

First of all, you’ll want some kind of external hardware button. You can buy a pre-built solution like Stream Deck, or you can get tinkering and make your own, like this programmable USB button. You can even get really creative (like one of our users!) and build a custom hardware switch attached to a giant neon “on air” light. 🤩

Basically, so long as your device can map to a keyboard shortcut, you should be able to build the setup of your dreams with Mic Drop. We recommend using BetterTouchTool to trigger the keyboard shortcut.

To turn a light on and off, you can query Mic Drop’s mute state using a Terminal command: defaults read com.octopusthink.Mic-Drop devicesMuted. 1 means your mic is muted, 0 means your mic is not muted.

My microphone or audio input device isn’t supported. Is there a workaround?

Indeed there is! Many users have had success using Loopback to create a virtual audio device and then muting that device with Mic Drop. Mic Drop is compatible with Loopback audio devices and in our experience this has worked quite well.

We can’t promise absolutely every incompatible device will work using this Loopback hack, but so far most XLR-USB type audio interfaces work perfectly with Mic Drop + Loopback. If you’ve upgraded to a really cool audio setup but still want to use Mic Drop, give Loopback a try!