During meetings, calls and presentations

Storage Studio can hold its daily automatic run of your Rules while you're on a call. It treats your Mac as "in a meeting" whenever any app is using the camera or microphone, and waits until the call is over. This works when Quiet Hours is set to Smart (recommended) and Pause during meetings is on. Storage Studio only checks whether the camera or microphone is in use — no video or audio is recorded.

Turning it on

1. Open Settings and choose the Quiet Hours pane.
2. Under Mode, choose Smart (recommended) — "Auto-detect quiet times based on your activity, battery, and meetings."
3. Make sure Pause during meetings is on. It's on to begin with, but it only takes effect in Smart mode.

Quiet Hours starts in Scheduled mode, which keeps a fixed quiet window and doesn't look at meetings.

What happens during a call

%% caption: How a call holds the daily automatic run
flowchart TD
  A[Time for the daily automatic run] --> B{Quiet Hours set to Smart?}
  B -->|No| C[Scheduled mode rules apply instead]
  B -->|Yes| D{Are you using the Mac right now?}
  D -->|Yes| H[Wait and check again later]
  D -->|No| E{Battery below your Quiet Hours limit?}
  E -->|Yes| H
  E -->|No| F{Camera or microphone in use and Pause during meetings on?}
  F -->|Yes| H
  F -->|No| G[The run goes ahead]

• Storage Studio checks every few seconds whether any app is using the camera or microphone. Microphone detection needs macOS 14 or later; the camera is detected on every supported version.
• While that's true, the daily run of your Rules waits. When the call ends, it goes ahead at the next quiet moment.
• In the Advanced view's popover, the Power row shows "in a meeting" or "no meeting" while Quiet Hours is in Smart mode.

What a call doesn't change

Meeting detection only holds that daily automatic run. Storage Studio's other background work doesn't watch for calls — but it's already built to stay out of your way:

• Whenever you're typing or using the mouse, background work slows right down, and it gives way further on battery. See Why Storage Studio works slowly on purpose.
• If your Mac gets busy or hot during a call, Automatic performance mode eases off, and pauses background work altogether under heavy load.
• Background duplicate scans of your Mac only run when you've stepped away. See Background duplicate scans.

There's no separate detection for presentations or screen sharing. If you want Storage Studio to hold everything for an important presentation, do two things beforehand: choose Minimum — core only as the performance mode, which holds its background work, and use Pause, which holds its automatic clear-ups and the daily run. Undo both afterwards. See Pausing or stopping everything.

Privacy

Storage Studio asks macOS only whether a camera or microphone is currently in use by another app. It doesn't record, capture or keep any video or audio, and it doesn't note which app is using them. See Privacy: what stays on your Mac.

See also: Quiet Hours · Battery and power · Is Storage Studio slowing my Mac down?