How to get your Lenovo laptop webcam working

Over lockdown, video calling has become the primary way most of us communicate. Nothing is more infuriating than when your webcam won't work. We have found Lenovo laptops to suffer the most from webcams not working. It took us a long time to find the root of the problem, and we are IT veterans! 

It turns out Lenovo has a hidden webcam privacy setting located in their Lenovo Vantage software which comes installed on most new Lenovo laptops. 

If this setting is enabled, your webcam will not work, no matter what you try, and Lenovo unhelpfully displays no message to alert you to change your webcam privacy setting. 

How to enable your Lenovo laptop webcam:

• Open the Lenovo Vantage Software

• Select Device on the menu bar

• Then select My Device Settings

• Then Display and Camera

• Scroll down to Camera

• Toggle Camera Privacy Mode to off