Enable and disable a Mac's built-in iSight camera via the command line.

A simple install script is included in this repository. This script will overwrite any file located at /usr/local/bin/isight.

\curl -sSL https://raw.github.com/jessedoyle/isight-cli/master/installer.sh | bash

Alternatively, take the isight script from this repository and put it wherever you like!

You must run the isight commands below with sudo privileges.

An alternate strategy is used to disable the camera when isight-cli detects that the host system has System Integrity Protection enabled. In this case, system profiles are installed to disable the camera.

Disable:

sudo isight off

Enable:

sudo isight on

Running the isight command without any arguments will display the camera's current status.

View a simple help page using:

isight help

The script simply restricts system access to the files that are required by the iSight drivers. Anyone with root access can re-enable the camera.

If the Disk Utility repair permissions tool is ran when the camera is disabled, the process will re-enable the camera.

Feel free to fork this repository, make your changes and generate a pull request!

This script is based off of the work completed by https://techslaves.org on their great AppleScript "iSight Disabler".

Please visit: https://techslaves.org/isight-disabler/ to see the original AppleScript implementation.

iSight CLI Disabler is licensed under the MIT license. Please see LICENSE for details.