How to Turn Off Center Stage on Mac (Zoom, FaceTime, Teams)

How to Turn Off Center Stage on Mac (macOS Sonoma and Later)

Since macOS Sonoma 14, Apple has put video effects in their own Video menu in the menu bar. The icon shows up only while an app is capturing video, which is why people open System Settings, find nothing, and assume the option is missing. The same steps apply on macOS Sequoia and later releases.

1. Turn on the camera in your video app. Join the Zoom meeting with video on, start a FaceTime call, or open the camera preview in Teams. The Video icon appears in the menu bar once the camera is on.
2. Click the Video icon in the menu bar. It opens a small panel with a live preview of your camera and the video effects for that app.
3. Click Center Stage to turn it off. When it is off, the Center Stage button looks dimmed rather than highlighted. The frame stops following you straight away.
4. Check the result in the preview. Lean to one side. The picture should stay put while you move inside it.

Apple's own article, Use Center Stage to keep you centered in the camera frame, gives the same path for Sonoma: from the Video menu in the menu bar, choose Center Stage. Because the menu is tied to the app that has the camera open, set it with the call app in front. If a different app still follows you later, open the Video menu while that app is on camera and check Center Stage there as well.

On macOS Sonoma 14 and later, Apple's Center Stage switch is in the Video menu, a menu bar icon that appears only while an app such as Zoom, FaceTime or Teams is using the camera. Deselecting Center Stage there stops the camera from panning and zooming to follow the person on screen.

Turn Off Center Stage on macOS Ventura or Monterey

On macOS Ventura 13 and Monterey 12, the setting lives in Control Center instead of a separate Video menu.

1. Start the camera in your video app, as above.
2. Click the Control Center icon in the menu bar.
3. Click Video Effects.
4. Click Center Stage to deselect it.

If you can't see Video Effects in Control Center, the camera is probably not running yet, or the camera in use is one that Center Stage does not cover (see the list of supported Macs below). Updating to a current version of macOS moves the control into the Video menu, which is easier to find mid-call.

How to Stop the Zoom Camera From Following You

On a Mac, two separate features can move your picture in Zoom, and you need both off for a fixed frame. In our experience the usual mistake is switching off one, seeing the camera still follow, and assuming the setting is broken.

Zoom added its own video auto-framing in 2025, and the redesigned Video tab in Zoom Workplace lists it with the other appearance controls: Touch up my appearance, Adjust for low light, Portrait lighting and Auto-framing. To turn it off:

1. Open the Zoom desktop app and click your profile picture, then Settings.
2. Open the Video tab (called Video & effects in some recent versions).
3. Switch off Auto-framing.
4. Quit and reopen Zoom if the frame still moves on your next call.

With both switches off, Zoom shows exactly what the lens sees. That makes framing your job, so set the laptop or external camera at eye level and sit about an arm's length away. The same fixed frame matters when you read from notes during a call, which is the setup in our guide to using a teleprompter on Zoom calls.

Which Macs Have Center Stage?

Center Stage needs a camera with a wide enough view to crop into. Apple lists these Mac setups:

• MacBook Pro introduced in 2024 or later, using its built-in camera
• MacBook Air introduced in 2025 or later, using its built-in camera
• iMac introduced in 2024 or later, using its built-in camera
• Any Mac using the built-in camera of an Apple Studio Display or Studio Display XDR
• Any Mac using an iPhone 11 or later (excluding iPhone SE models) as a webcam through Continuity Camera

The built-in cameras on those MacBooks and iMacs are what Apple calls the 12MP Center Stage camera. Older MacBooks and most USB webcams are outside this list, so if your camera follows you on one of those, the movement is coming from Zoom's Auto-framing or the webcam's own software rather than from Center Stage. To see which camera your Mac is using, the webcam test shows its name and real resolution.

With an iPhone as the webcam, the Video menu adds an arrow next to Center Stage that lets you pick the iPhone's Main or Ultra Wide rear camera. Our comparison of a webcam and an iPhone camera covers when an iPhone is worth mounting for calls in the first place.

Apple's Center Stage works on Macs through the 12MP Center Stage camera in MacBook Pro models from 2024, MacBook Air models from 2025 and iMac models from 2024, through the Apple Studio Display camera, and through an iPhone 11 or later used with Continuity Camera, according to Apple Support.

Turn Off Center Stage in FaceTime, Teams and on iPad

FaceTime on Mac

FaceTime uses the same control as every other app. During a FaceTime video call, click the Video icon in the menu bar and deselect Center Stage, or use Control Center, Video Effects on Ventura and Monterey.

Microsoft Teams on Mac

Teams relies on the macOS control too. Join the meeting with your camera on (or open the camera preview before you join), click the Video icon in the menu bar and turn Center Stage off. Teams then receives a fixed picture, just like Zoom.

iPad and FaceTime on iPad

Center Stage started on iPad, and it runs on the front camera of iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) and later, iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) and later, iPad Air (5th generation) and later, iPad (9th generation) and later, and iPad mini (6th generation) and later. To turn it off, open your video app, swipe down from the top-right corner to open Control Center, tap the app's controls button at the top (for example, FaceTime Controls; on iPadOS 17 or earlier it is called Video Effects), and tap Center Stage. In a FaceTime call you can also tap your own video tile and use the Center Stage button from the camera effects there.

What Center Stage Actually Does to Your Picture

Center Stage is a crop, not a moving lens. The camera captures a wider field of view than the frame you send, and software tracks where you are and moves a smaller window around inside that wide image, zooming in when you're alone and widening when someone joins you. That is why the motion feels smooth but slightly delayed: the crop is following you after the fact.

Turning it off fixes the window in place. On a Mac with the 12MP Center Stage camera you keep control over that crop: Apple's guide to using the camera on Mac describes manual framing, where you turn off Center Stage in the Video menu and then hold the pointer over the preview to pan and zoom the shot by hand. We set it once with the face slightly above center and leave it there for every call.

Center Stage helps when you move around on purpose: demonstrating something at a whiteboard, cooking on camera, or keeping two people in one shot. For a seated meeting or a presentation, a fixed frame looks calmer and keeps your eyes in a predictable place relative to the lens.

Presenting on the Call? Keep Your Script Right Under the Webcam

A lot of people turn Center Stage off right before a pitch, a webinar or an interview, because a frame that drifts every time they glance at their notes looks distracting. Once the frame is fixed, the next step is keeping those notes next to the lens instead of further down the screen.

Teleprompter-Scrolling Scripts for Mac has a floating window that keeps your script scrolling on top of Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, including full-screen calls. Drag it right under the webcam and size it to two or three lines. The window stays out of the way of keyboard focus, so you can unmute, share your screen or open the chat while the text keeps moving, and its play, pause and next-section buttons let you hold on a point or jump ahead without switching apps. The app is free to download from the Mac App Store, and Prompter mode leaves the camera entirely to your call app.

The full walkthrough, including text size and scroll speed for conversation pace, is in our teleprompter setup guide for Mac.

Frequently Asked Questions