This handy Mac app is a one-click way to check how you look before your next video call

You know that feeling you get one minute before hopping on a video call when you realize you have no idea how you actually look? A handy new Mac app, Hand Mirror, helps with that by turning on your webcam with just one click so you can quickly make sure you don't have spinach in your teeth. The app is made by designer and developer Rafael Conde.

When you run Hand Mirror, a hand mirror icon will appear in your Mac's menu bar. When you click it, your webcam turns on, and a small window pops up showing a live feed of yourself. If you click the menubar icon again, the video feed closes, and your webcam turns off.

That's all Hand Mirror does, and I find it incredibly handy. Sure, you could check how you look by opening the Photo Booth app, but it's slower to open, in my experience. In fact, when I timed Photo Booth and Hand Mirror on my 2014 MacBook Air, Photo Booth took 2.5 seconds to load, while Hand Mirror took about one. That's a small difference, but it feels significant in practice.

It's a really useful app that I think I'll be using a lot, especially now that I'm on a lot more video calls because of social distancing due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Hand Mirror is a free download for macOS Catalina.