How to fix iPhone SE not recognized as Webcam on Mac mini M2

Your comment about toggling Bluetooth off and on was the first comment I saw and it worked for me. Thank you!

Toxic persons who address themselves as "we" should be banned IMHO.

It was not an intermittent thing in my case, it was a solution that worked for me 3 times already. Without restart, without toggling wifi and whatnot. Toggling Bluetooth.

If it doesn't work for you - maybe you have a different issue. Let's see if it helps others.

This feature is not very robust. It works some time, but not all the times. You need to lock your phone screen first, lay the phone in landscape oritation, place the phone in a stable positon and THEN start the app such as FaceTime. When it does not work, restart the Mac Mini

Apple's approach worked for me. It was necessary, as they said, to connect my iPhone 14 to the Mac (running Sonoma) via a USB cable and then restart the Mac. Also, this reenabled the use of my Apple Watch to unlock the Mac, as well as send SMS text messages via iMessages.

ml5661,

Thanks for providing those additional details, and great job on the troubleshooting you're done to isolate the issue.

Based on the information you've provided, and the steps you've gone through, reaching out to Apple Support directly would likely be the next best option.

You can reach out them directly using this link here: Contact - Official Apple Support

Best regards.

I've been having the same issue with my iPhone 12 Pro with Ventura on a new M2 Mac mini.

That is, it sometimes works but often does not.

It wasn't working today, then I thought I'd try something. I noticed it was a bit dark in my home office so I turned on the room light and suddenly the continuity camera kicked in and started working.

So, maybe we all just need to turn up our lights??

See info from Apple. Needs to be locked, stable, landscaped, enough light, back camera not ubstructed

Continuity Camera: Use iPhone as a webcam for Mac - Apple Support

I was having the same issue too. Apple doesn't tell you the full story. For this to work you also need to make sure the iPhone is set to landscape and that there is lighting in the room. If its dark it won't work.

I had a Wi-Fi problem before, which I solved by disabling AWDL (I used the script from "Meter" for the daemon).

Immediately after that, "Continuity Camera" stopped working over Wi-Fi (my iPhone would connect, but there was no video, and the iPhone would soon disconnect). I tried to get it back by using another script from "Meter" to disable the daemon and enabling AWDL. But that script doesn't work! You need to disable this daemon in macos Settings>General>Logins Items (look screenshot. Sorry for the Russian interface, but I think you can find it).

Although you are reading what issue your users are experiencing, you are not actively listening to your users. Offering system requirements, although helpful is subpar. Expect us to know this already and find another possible solution.

I tried standing my iPhone 12 on its side in front of my Mac mini then opening FaceTime and continuity camera worked fine. Seems iPhone must be stationary on it's side (landscape) and near the Mac in order for continuity camera to work.

Note: Prior to trying this the only way I could get the iPhone camera to show up in continuity mode was to connect via USB.

Continuity camera is such a huge disappointment. It will work once, then the next ten times you try to use it, it will fail. Troubleshooting steps are inconsistent, other than the fact that you have to do them repeatedly to get the Mac to see the camera again.

Hopefully Apple will figure it out with macOS 14 or iOS 17, whichever is the problem. Right now, it's not worth the hassle.

OMG. I managed to find an old smartphone tripod and fixed my iPhone 12 into that, and when I tried FaceTime again it picked up the camera straight away. Great, but Apple need to be clearer about this.

Are you serious RN?! It worked for me as well!

You know what is the most funny part of this? I have this issue for months. It worked every time with my Macbook Pro M1 but it stopped working after a week or so on my Mac Mini M2 Pro so I called to Apple to solve the issue cause I need to use it every day and its way easier to connect it to my Mac Mini with my hude external monitor than grabbing another device and trying to work from it.

They have been collecting dev data from my Mac Mini, they did not know how to handle this and suddelny they told me it is expected this is not working on devices with no built in camera and its working only with cable connected to the devices. I was wtf...but ok, it really did work. But it took them like 4 months to came with this and they dont even know its working but in this weird way? Interesting.

Thank you very much, made my day!