PS5 Controller: How to Mute the Mic on the DualSense

One of the many upgrades the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller offers is a built-in microphone to go along with the speaker that persisted from the DualShock 4 to the new generation. It's a helpful feature when it comes to chatting with someone quickly if you can't get to your headset right away and can even be used to dictate speech and send messages faster than you'd be able to pecking away at an on-screen keyboard, but there are of course some times when you'd rather not have everything you're saying coming through the mic. In that case, there are a few easy ways to mute the device depending on how long you want it to stay muted.

The easiest and quickest way to mute your device so that you don't have to worry about saying something through the built-in mic by accident is to look for the button on the controller that's right beneath the main PlayStation button. It'll look like a small horizontal line, and to let you know you're hitting the right one, beneath it will be the customary "mute" icon showing a microphone with a slash through it. If you choose to mute it that way, you can just press it again to unmute, but know that you'll have to repeat the process again whenever you turn off the controller or the PlayStation 5 and hop back on next time.

To keep the mic muted for longer so that you don't have to remember to hit the controller's button every time if you don't think you'll be getting much use out of the feature, you can head to the PlayStation 5's system settings to take care of that. Go to the "Sound" menu where you'll be able to configure a number of different audio settings and look for the one that says "Microphone."

A couple of different options ranging from selecting the preferred input device to setting the microphone level can be found there, but the one you're looking for is "Microphone Status When Logged In." From there, you can set it to "Mute" so that whenever you log into the console, it'll be muted.

Besides a mic that can be muted on its controller, the PlayStation 5 has a couple of other handy features for players to utilize. It's technically got a limited-functionality web browser players can access, it's got a game share feature that's easier to configure, and that same controller can also be used to capture gameplay and screenshots in a much better way thanks to the "Create" button.