Cameras and audio

Camera tiles

When your camera is on, you appear as a video tile in the meeting gallery (your own tile is mirrored, like a mirror image of yourself). When your camera is off, your tile shows your display name centered on a flat graphite background instead of video, falling back to just your first letter if the full name doesn’t fit. Camera video always renders as a regular gallery tile — it never becomes a movable window. Movable native windows are reserved for shared windows and screens, not cameras.

A muted participant’s tile shows a small mic-off icon in the corner. If a participant’s connection is weak, their tile dims and shows a “Video paused” indicator until the connection recovers.

Switching devices mid-meeting

Open Settings > Devices to change your camera, microphone, or speaker.

• Microphone and speaker changes apply immediately if you’re currently in a meeting — the dropdown reports “Switched microphone” or “Switched speaker” once the swap succeeds. If you’re not in a meeting, the choice is saved for later and the dropdown reports “Saved — applies when you join a room.”
• Camera selection in Settings only drives the live preview shown right there in Settings, using whichever cameras macOS reports once Camera permission is granted. The camera actually published in a meeting is always the system default camera (usually the built-in one) — picking a different camera in Settings does not change which camera other participants see, and the choice isn’t saved between visits to Settings. This is a real limitation of the current version, not a hidden setting you’re missing.

If your microphone shows “isn’t active in this meeting” after a switch, check that Microphone permission is granted under Settings > Permissions — a device swap can’t hot-swap a track that was never publishing in the first place.

No devices found

If Petal can’t find any microphones or speakers, the corresponding dropdown in Settings is disabled and reads “No microphones found” or “No speakers found.” This reflects what macOS itself reports. Reconnect or check your audio hardware, then reopen Settings.

Camera permission is optional

You don’t need to grant Camera permission to use Petal — you can always join meetings with your camera off. (Onboarding requires Screen Recording, Microphone, and Accessibility; Camera can be granted whenever you first want to appear on camera.)

If Camera permission is denied, the preview box in Settings > Devices shows “Camera access is turned off for Petal” along with a button that opens System Settings directly to the Camera privacy pane, and a “Try again” button to recheck once you’ve granted it. See Troubleshooting for the full recovery flow, including what to do if the permission looks granted but the preview stays dark.