Mic Test

Press start, allow the browser to use the microphone, and speak. The meter moves with your voice and the verdict underneath says whether the level is good, too quiet, or clipping. Then record a few seconds and play it back — that is the part that actually answers the question, because a level bar cannot tell you that you sound muffled or that a fan is roaring behind you.

No. Everything happens in the page: the meter reads the audio in your browser, and the recording is held in memory and thrown away when you leave the page or record again. There is no account, no upload and no storage — which is a promise worth checking on any site that asks you to speak into it, this one included.

That your input level is turned up too high, so the loudest parts have been squared off at the top and cannot be recovered. It arrives at the other end as crackling or distortion, and it sounds worse than being too quiet. It is also the fault people never suspect, because the meter looks its healthiest right when it is happening — turn the input gain down until the peaks stop touching the top.

Because the browser hides device names until you have granted permission. Before that, any page could work out what hardware you own without asking you for anything — so the names arrive with the permission, and until then a numbered placeholder is all there is to show.

In order: that you allowed the permission when the browser asked, that the right device is picked in the list, that the microphone is not muted by a switch on the hardware or a key on the keyboard, and that no other program has exclusive hold of it — a video call left open in another tab is the usual culprit, and on some systems it takes the device entirely.

Yes, on any modern mobile browser. The permission prompt looks different and the choice of devices is usually just the built-in mic against a headset, but the meter, the verdict and the playback all work the same way.