How to disable FaceTime on your iPad, iPhone, and Mac

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If you haven’t heard by now, a nuclear bomb of a report was published on Monday that uncovered a major bug in FaceTime. Essentially, you could call anyone via FaceTime on either an iPhone or Mac and it would basically give you access to a users microphone, regardless if they picked up the call or not.

Yea, not good, right?

Since this was discovered, Apple is temporarily disabling the Group FaceTime feature on iOS and macOS and will be issuing a fix later this week. But just in case you want to be extra vigilant and don’t want anyone snooping in on your private life, you can just disable FaceTime entirely from either your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

Sure, this will disable FaceTime audio and video calls entirely, but at the same time, you’re playing it safe until Apple issues a fix. Here’s how to disable it.

On a Mac:

Image: Screenshot / KnowTechie

1. Launch the FaceTime app
2. On the top left-hand corner of your screen, go to the menu, and click on “FaceTime”
3. Click on “Preferences”
4. Uncheck “Enable this account”

Additionally, you can head on over to the menu and click “Turn FaceTime off.”

On an iPhone or iPad

Image: Screenshot / KnowTechie

1. Head on over to the Settings app
2. Scroll down to “FaceTime”
3. Toggle “FaceTime off”

That’s it.

Again, Apple has taken the Group FaceTime server out of commission while it works on a fix, which should come later this week. In the meantime, disable FaceTime on all your Apple devices until you know you’ve gotten the update.

Did you disable FaceTime? Do you think you were affected by this bug? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com or find him on Mastodon or Post.