Microphone indicator (orange dot) in top right corner persists after app closed

I also noticed the orange dot, and I even disabled microphone access to some apps, but it is still there. However I see this:

1. When the dot is in the top right corner (not next to the control icon) ...
2. Open Preferences -> Sound -> Input
3. The dot jumps left of and now it's in the correct place, near the control
4. Switch to another tab (like Output) or back out of the Sound page...
5. And the dot moves again to the right corner

If this is not a bug, it's surely an undocumented and weird feature

I think this feature needs more thought.

I run Sonarworks Reference on my Mac; it's speaker calibration software. It runs all the time, and I already knew it needed access to the microphone. I trust the app and the developers. This means that the orange dot is there absolutely all the time, and therefore doesn't even alert me if an unknown app is sneakily accessing the mic.

Even if I didn't use Sonarworks, Reason (or any other music-production software) also has access to the microphone. I'm making music much of the time I'm on the Mac. Indeed Apple touts its systems as being designed for content creators, so the orange dot doesn't work for their very target audience.

So: it's a constant visual perturbance, and doesn't even do what it was designed to do.

Also just found this command on a Reddit thread:

sudo killall coreaudiod

This killed the orange dot, one thing in this thread that did make sense - users are talking about having an external camera and/or mic if either has a companion app this causing the issue. I have an Elgato FaceCam and a Wave XLR. The CameraHub app from Elgato is always on so wondering if that isn't causing the issue.

FWIW, that doesn't happen on any of my Monterey installs. The dot shouldn't be moving to the right of the clock. I don't have an answer to why yours is doing that. If there was a "hidden process" the dot should show in its normal position to the right of the Control Center.

You could test while in Safe Mode.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

When the dot shows

Download and run this app so we can find more information about your installation.

https://etrecheck.com/upgrade

It shows what is launched and other information and is very useful in finding causes of problems. After you first launch the app make sure you check Enable full disk access in the box in lower left.

After running the app use the app's Share feature “Copy” that pastes to clipboard. Then paste it in the text box for a reply in this forum click on the addition text icon. This is because the normal reply text box limits how much you can type.

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For what it's worth I have this issue on two different M1 MacBook Airs (2020), one is work issued and one is a personal machine. I first noticed this on my personal MBA and got paranoid because I had installed an unofficial build of OBS, however it started happening on my work MBA which I did not install that software on. I think it's a bug and I had an hour or so long convo with a tier 3 Apple support rep and they hadn't seen it either - this was in the spring. My theory is it's either a macOS UI bug OR there is a process that isn't closing a mic or camera properly. A restart causes to go away and I think (but can't remember exactly) that there was a dot release recently where this didn't happen.

[Resolved] I also had the persistant orange dot in the top-right corner next to the clock.

I chatted with Apple Support and first they told me to restart in Safe Mode, and it seems to have fixed the issue while I was in Safe Mode. But then I immediately updated to the latest version of macOS Monterey 12.6 and the orange dot is gone!

I can confirm that I am having the same issue on my M1pro 14" MacBook Pro for many months now. I can reboot to clear the orange dot but after my next Zoom session the orange dot that was in the proper place during the call now shows up to the right of the clock. Rebooting will clear the dot. There was an update to Zoom a while back that fixed an issue with Zoom not releasing the microphone properly but that did not fix this rogue orange dot issue. I don't know if any other video conferencing software has the same effect. I'm on the latest versions of both Monterey and Zoom.

atrac wrote:

I think this feature needs more thought.

You're more than welcome to share your thought with Apple.

Feedback - macOS - Apple

I have exactly the same problem. Did you find any solution?

No.

I did use the feedback link suggested above.

"Did you try restarting your computer?"

I just did. It helped :) Looks like a bug for me.

This is exactly what happens with my system as well.

Logging out/restarting does solve it, until it happens again.