Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

For the opposite effect, install `bucklespring` to enjoy an authentic classic clacking on any keyboard (most convenient on GNU&#x2F;Linux, packaged for the biggest distros).<p>“This project emulates the sound of my old faithful IBM Model-M space saver bucklespring keyboard while typing on my notebook, mainly for the purpose of annoying the [heck] out of my coworkers.<p>Bucklespring runs as a background process and plays back the sound of each key pressed and released on your keyboard, just as if you were using an IBM Model-M. The sound of each key has carefully been sampled, and is played back while simulating the proper distance and direction for a realistic 3D sound palette of pure nostalgic bliss” — <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zevv&#x2F;bucklespring" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zevv&#x2F;bucklespring</a>

The sentence explaining what it does has a typo which makes it confusing:<p>&gt; Unclack is the small but mighty Mac utility that mutes your keyboard while you type.<p>This should say &quot;mutes your _microphone_ while you type&quot;. You can&#x27;t mute a keyboard

I thought this was going to be an app that emits some kind of inverse sound through the laptop speakers to neutralize the keypress sound in real life. I wonder if that&#x27;s possible.

A solution like rtx voice seems a better way to go tbh. For those who don&#x27;t know, it&#x27;s an nvidia thing that uses a GPU accelerated (ofc, it&#x27;s nvidia) neural network to denoise voice calls, from all kinds of noise, not just typing. It&#x27;s really pretty impressive, here&#x27;s a demo: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uWUHkCgslNE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=uWUHkCgslNE</a><p>I wish it wasn&#x27;t proprietary though (and worse, hardware specific). And windows only of course.

Here&#x27;s a tip from people I know that do streaming from their computer: get the microphone off your desk. Find something else to put it on or buy an arm it can attach to. The fact that your device or mic are sitting on your desk where the keyboard clack vibrations are traveling right through amplifies them.

This made me do a double take: &quot;The key board on Macs has artificial clacking?&quot; but of course this actually mutes your microphone, not your keyboard.

It doesn&#x27;t &quot;mute your keyboard&quot; it &quot;mutes everything&quot; which isn&#x27;t very useful in a meeting.

I wish push-to-talk was more common. On linux I&#x27;ve been using this little python script that implements global push-to-talk by (un)muting the microphone in pulseaudio when you push a button. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;somini&#x2F;inpulse-to-talk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gitlab.com&#x2F;somini&#x2F;inpulse-to-talk</a><p>Time to see if there&#x27;s something equivalent for mac.

After seeing this and being a bit disappointed it was for Mac only, I wrote a very quick and dirty script for Linux that does something similar [1].<p>Probably has lots of bugs and missed edge cases (although it should handle not unmuting you if you mute yourself), but was fun to write none the less and might be useful.<p>If you want to play it, please have a read before using it (it has to capture key presses using xinput but does nothing with actual key values) and I won&#x27;t accept any responsibility if it mutes &#x2F; unmutes you at an inopportune time, etc.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;CRuLWjzr" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;CRuLWjzr</a>

When I downloaded it the DMG file was 12.2Mb. I was suspicious of why an app this small in function would require such a large download, and looked inside, but the actual contents was only 1.4Mb, half of which was icons etc., which seems much more reasonable. If I right click on Unclack.app and choose &quot;compress&quot;, I get a file under 1Mb in size.<p>Does this always happen with DMG files, or is there something weird going on here? This file is 10× bigger than it could be.

You already have a mute button.. do you really want to deal with unplanned un-muting as opposed to planned muting?

I work with someone who just installed this. The effect was that he accidentally muted himself every time he started typing. Not ideal...<p>Filtering out key-presses from the audio stream without completely muting it would be much better.

I wonder why the developer didn&#x27;t notarize this app? Seems especially relevant since there could be keylogging concerns. You can bypass the warning message, but not a good first impression for users: &quot;Unclack can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software. This software needs to be updated.&quot;<p>I <i>really</i> like the app concept!

Overwhelmed by your feedback &amp; support! If anyone wants to follow Unclack on Product Hunt, you can check it out here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.producthunt.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;unclack-for-macos" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.producthunt.com&#x2F;posts&#x2F;unclack-for-macos</a>

This is genius but I usually mute myself before and after speaking. Great idea though for us mechanical switch folks.

For anyone that&#x27;s tried them both - how does it compare to krisp.ai?<p>I&#x27;ve been using Krisp since the start of 2020 and have been really happy with both its audio performance and that it doesn&#x27;t seem to use excessive CPU&#x2F;GPU, not to mention that it doesn&#x27;t require nvidia hardware. Krisp is a paid, closed source product however.

A bit silly but does anyone know what editor app is shown in this gif[0]?<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;raw.githubusercontent.com&#x2F;robotsquidward&#x2F;gifs&#x2F;master&#x2F;unclack-pause-demo.gif" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;raw.githubusercontent.com&#x2F;robotsquidward&#x2F;gifs&#x2F;master...</a>

Beautiful homepage, great app UX so far. Will give it a try on my next call. Thanks a lot OP!

Is it Big Sur only?

Oh man. I literally wrote a utility for OS X that does exactly this, in Swift, 6 years ago, as a test project to get my feet wet in that environment.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;orospakr&#x2F;suppressor" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;orospakr&#x2F;suppressor</a><p>I don&#x27;t imagine it still builds. Perhaps I should have followed through with it!<p>Congrats to the author.

I wrote a Windows utility for muting input devices while you type. Alpha version, but might help someone: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;drittich&#x2F;stealth-notes&#x2F;releases" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;drittich&#x2F;stealth-notes&#x2F;releases</a>

Does Zoom does this automatically? I hardly ever hear keyboard sounds during video calls.

I thought this mutes(disables) the inbuilt keyboard on my macbook. Would be super helpful for me since my son randomly presses key on my macbook keyboard while I&#x27;m trying to type from my external keyboard.<p>Still, a slick utility. Good luck !!

For anyone stumbling upon this thread now, Unclack now supports macOS Catalina! I pushed an update today that is available from the landing page. Check it out! Thanks again for your support of Unclack!

I can&#x27;t believe this just appeared on the front page. A co-worker and I were just talking about this happening on calls. I&#x27;m going to send this to a few people unsolicited.

This is a god send. What a great little tool.<p>I am constantly being berated by colleagues when I start loudly typing on my mechanical keyboard without thinking...

Anyone know of a big overlay that stays in the foreground lets you know if you&#x27;re muted&#x2F;muted?

So, people will instead see your mute indicator flicker haphazardly while you’re typing. ;)

Is this app trustworthy? It isn&#x27;t even notarized.

&quot;Forward to your annoying coworker today!&quot;

Great stuff, but has wider functionality krisp.ai

I need this app. But that’s not what it does :)

hmm why can&#x27;t i open the dmg? i&#x27;m on big sur

Dude, take my money.

Sad to hear macOS lets apps snoop on my keystrokes.