How to Use Your iPhone as a Mac Webcam (Continuity)

Your iPhone's rear camera embarrasses every webcam ever built into a Mac. Continuity Camera makes it available to FaceTime, Zoom, Meet, and anything else with a camera picker — wirelessly, with no app to install and no cable required. If your iPhone runs iOS 16+ and your Mac runs Ventura or later, this already works; you just have to select it.

The checklist (60 seconds)

• iPhone: iOS 16 or later, iPhone XR or newer. Mac: macOS 13 Ventura or later.
• Both signed into the same Apple ID, with two-factor authentication on.
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on for both devices, within normal room range of each other.
• On the iPhone, confirm the switch is on: Settings → General → AirPlay & Handoff → Continuity Camera. It's on by default.

No pairing ceremony. The iPhone simply appears as a camera and a microphone on the Mac.

Select it in any app

1. Open your video app — FaceTime, Zoom, Teams, or a browser tab running Meet.
2. Open its camera picker (FaceTime: the Video menu; Zoom: the arrow next to the camera button; browsers: the camera icon in the address bar or the site's settings).
3. Choose your iPhone's name from the list. The phone chimes, its screen announces it's in use, and the feed switches to its rear camera.
4. For best results, mount the phone landscape, rear camera facing you, screen locked — locked-and-landscape is the posture macOS treats as "this phone is a webcam now", and some apps auto-switch to it.

The iPhone can also serve as just a microphone — it appears in System Settings → Sound → Input and in app mic pickers, which is a genuine upgrade over a Mac across the desk.

The effects live in Control Center

While the iPhone camera is active, click Control Center in the Mac's menu bar → Video Effects:

• Center Stage — the ultrawide lens crops and follows you as you move.
• Portrait — background blur that's actually optical-looking.
• Studio Light — brightens your face, dims the background; rescues bad home lighting.
• Desk View — the party trick: the ultrawide looks down and shows your desk like an overhead camera, alongside your face. Great for sketching, unboxing, showing documents.

On macOS Sonoma and later there are also Reactions (hand-gesture-triggered fireworks and balloons) — worth knowing about mostly so you can turn them off in the same panel before a serious call.

Mounting, power, and switching back

Any cheap phone tripod or a MagSafe monitor mount works; the camera is stabilized enough that "leaned against a stack of books" also genuinely works. Long calls burn battery — a charging cable makes it a permanent setup (a wired USB connection is also slightly more reliable than wireless if your Wi-Fi is congested). To stop: pick a different camera in the app, or just tap Disconnect on the iPhone's screen. To opt out of the feature entirely, flip off Settings → General → AirPlay & Handoff → Continuity Camera on the phone — that's the full undo.