Webcam Test – Check Your Camera Online
A free webcam test that shows your camera live — check the resolution and frame rate it really delivers, take a photo, or record a short test video.
| Size | Pixels | Delivered |
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Your privacy is protected! No data is transmitted or stored.
How to use the webcam test
Press Start webcam test, allow the camera, and look at the preview. If you can see yourself, your webcam works. This webcam test tool is free, needs no sign-up and runs in your browser, so it works as an online webcam test tool on whatever laptop, PC or phone is in front of you.
- Start. Press Start webcam test. Your browser asks for permission; choose Allow.
- Look. The preview shows your camera live. The line above it tells you if the picture is black, too dark, very bright or has stopped changing, and Camera working appears once a real picture has arrived.
- Choose the camera. If you have a USB webcam plugged in, or a phone with front and back cameras, pick it under Camera.
- Check the resolution. Read Resolution and Frame rate under the preview, or press Test resolutions to see every size the camera delivers.
- Take a photo or record. Press Take photo, or Record 10 seconds to capture a short video, with sound if you tick Include microphone.
- Stop. Press Stop when you are done. The browser releases the camera and its light goes out.
Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded, which is what most people want from a webcam test free of accounts and downloads. It is also the quickest webcam camera test to check your camera online before a call, an online class or an interview.
Is my webcam working? What the page tells you
| The page says | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Your camera is working. | A normal picture is arriving. | Nothing. Check the resolution if you want to know how sharp it is. |
| The picture is black. | Frames arrive but they are almost completely black. | Open the privacy shutter, uncover the lens, press the laptop's camera key, or choose another camera. |
| Too dark. | Average brightness is below 40 out of 255. | Put a light in front of you. A window behind you makes your face darker. |
| Very bright. | Average brightness is above 220 out of 255. | Move away from a bright window or lamp shining into the lens. |
| The picture has stopped changing. | Not a single pixel has changed for more than 2.5 seconds. A camera pointed at a real scene always changes a little from frame to frame. | Unplug the camera and plug it back in, or close other apps using it. |
Brightness is the average of the whole picture on a scale of 0 to 255, measured twice a second from a small copy of the frame inside the page. If the picture is black or shows an app logo instead of you, check that Camera is set to your real webcam and not a virtual camera installed by another app. A picture that shows but looks wrong is a different problem: see mirror, resolution and light below.
Resolution and frame rate: is my webcam HD?
Resolution under the preview is the size of the picture the camera is sending right now, for example 1920 × 1080, labelled 1080p Full HD. With Quality set to Highest available the page asks for up to 4K at 30 fps, and the browser picks the closest mode the camera offers, usually its largest. Press Test resolutions to ask for 4K, 1440p, 1080p, 720p, 480p and 240p one at a time: Yes means the camera delivered exactly that size. In Chrome and Edge the test only accepts sizes the camera produces itself; other browsers may also say Yes to smaller sizes they scale down to. That makes it a straight answer to a webcam test resolution question, whether you want to know if a camera is really HD, 1080p or 4K. If a camera sold as 1080p stops at 720p here, try another USB port and another browser before blaming the camera. Aspect ratio shows the shape of the picture, usually 16:9 for newer webcams or 4:3 for older ones.
Frame rate is counted from the frames as they arrive, so it shows what you actually get: 30 fps looks smooth, and below about 15 fps movement looks choppy. Many webcams lower their frame rate in dim light to let in more light, so a slow frame rate in a dark room often improves with a lamp. When frames cannot be counted, for example while the tab is in the background or in a browser without that feature, the page shows the rate the camera reports, marked reported.
Mirror, full screen and taking a photo
The preview starts mirrored, like looking in a mirror, which is also how Zoom and Teams show your own view. People on the other end see you the right way round. So if your picture looks inverted — writing on your shirt reads backwards — that is the mirror, not a fault. Press Mirror: on to switch it off and see the not inverted camera picture others get. A picture that is upside down is something else: it comes from the camera driver or the camera's own software, not the browser.
Full screen fills your display with the preview, a handy webcam test full screen view for checking framing and focus; press Exit full screen or Esc to leave. On an iPhone it opens the video player's own full screen. Take photo is a webcam photo test: it captures a PNG at the full size the camera is sending, and it matches the preview, so turn the mirror off first if you want the photo the way others see you. The photo appears in the Photo panel, and Download photo saves it.
Record a test video with sound
Press Record 10 seconds for a webcam test video. The recording stops on its own after ten seconds, or when you press Stop recording, and a player appears so you can watch it back. Tick Include microphone first to record sound as well; the browser then asks for the microphone too, and lets go of it when the recording ends. That makes it a webcam test with mic and audio in one go. Recordings are saved the way others see you, not mirrored, and Download video keeps the file, usually as WebM, or MP4 in browsers that only record MP4.
To check the microphone on its own, with a live level meter that shows whether it is too quiet or too loud, use the Mic Test.
Webcam not working? Fixes by device
If the page says the camera was blocked or not found, the block is usually in one of two places: the browser's permission for this site, or the system setting that lets the browser use a camera at all. In the browser, click the icon at the left of the address bar, open the site settings and set Camera to Allow, then reload and press Start webcam test again.
| Device | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Laptop | Many laptops have a sliding privacy shutter over the lens or a key with a camera symbol that turns the camera off. Open the shutter or press the key, then start again. |
| Windows 11 | Settings → Privacy & security → Camera: turn on Camera access, Let apps access your camera and Let desktop apps access your camera. Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Cameras lists the cameras Windows can see. |
| Windows 10 | Settings → Privacy → Camera: allow apps and desktop apps to access your camera. |
| Windows 7 | There is no camera privacy setting. Open Device Manager and check the webcam is listed under Imaging devices without a warning sign. |
| Mac | System Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera: turn it on for Chrome, Edge or Firefox. In Safari, use Safari → Settings → Websites → Camera instead. |
| iPhone and iPad | Settings → Apps → Safari → Camera, set to Ask or Allow (on iOS 17 and earlier, Settings → Safari → Camera). In Chrome, Settings → Apps → Chrome → Camera (Settings → Chrome on iOS 17 and earlier). |
| Android | In Chrome, tap the icon at the left of the address bar → Permissions → Camera. If Chrome itself is blocked, Settings → Apps → Chrome → Permissions → Camera. |
| Ubuntu and Linux | Settings → Privacy & Security → Camera: turn camera access on. This switch covers sandboxed browsers installed as a Snap or Flatpak. To see whether Linux detects the webcam at all, run ls /dev/video* in a terminal; if nothing is listed, the system does not see it. |
For a webcam test on a laptop, the shutter and the camera key catch more problems than anything else, because a covered camera still starts and simply sends a black picture. On Windows 10 and Windows 11 the switch for desktop apps matters most, because Chrome, Edge and Firefox count as desktop apps. The same page works as a webcam test for PC or any computer, and if you are wondering how to test a webcam on a Mac, open this page in Safari or Chrome and press Start; if the camera is blocked, follow the Mac row above. To check a webcam on Ubuntu or another Linux system, start with the terminal command above: if the device is listed, the camera is detected, and the problem is usually a permission or another app using it.
It runs in any current browser, including a webcam test in Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari, and on a mobile phone the front and back cameras both appear under Camera. For a USB webcam from Logitech, Razer or any other maker, plug it in first, then press Start and choose it from the list.
Why your webcam looks different in Zoom, Teams or Google Meet
This page shows the picture exactly as the camera sends it. Call apps change it: they usually send a lower resolution than the camera can capture to save bandwidth, compress the video, may blur or replace your background, and mirror your own view. That is why a camera can look sharp here and soft in a call. A webcam test for Teams or Zoom is still worth doing here first: if the camera works on this page, the hardware is fine and the problem is the app's own camera setting or another app holding the camera.
What this tool does not do
It does not change camera settings such as focus, zoom or exposure, it does not fix drivers, and it does not give your camera a quality score — to check webcam quality, look at the resolution, frame rate and brightness it measures, and at a photo or recording. And it does not send your picture anywhere, which is what makes the webcam test safe to use: the video is measured in the page, a photo or recording stays in the page and is gone when you close the tab unless you download it, and Stop releases the camera.