After installing Mac OS Sonoma there is a constant green dot on the menu bar. It disappears only after restarting the mac. The camera is not working (I hope). Seems to start when I start Zoom but it never goes away. The green dot placement can be anywhere on the menu bar. Sometimes it is in the middle and sometimes on the far right.
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.1
Click the Control Center icon 
to open Control Center, where you can access features you use often, such as AirDrop, Stage Manager, Screen Mirroring, Focus, and more. See Use Control Center.
Privacy indicators, which can be dots or arrows, are located to the right of Control Center. An orange dot 
next to the Control Center icon in the menu bar indicates the microphone on your Mac is in use; a green dot 
indicates a camera is in use; a purple dot 
indicates the system audio is being recorded; and an arrow 
indicates your location is in use. Only one privacy indicator dot is shown at a time. For example, if both the microphone and a camera are in use, you only see a green dot. When you open Control Center, the top of the window may contain a field that shows which apps are using your microphone, location, camera, or system audio. You can click that field to open the Privacy window, which may have additional information (macOS 13.3 or later).
Click the Control Center icon to open Control Center, where you can access features you use often, such as AirDrop, Stage Manager, Screen Mirroring, Focus, and more. See Use Control Center.
Privacy indicators, which can be dots or arrows, are located to the right of Control Center. An orange dot next to the Control Center icon in the menu bar indicates the microphone on your Mac is in use; a green dot indicates a camera is in use; a purple dot indicates the system audio is being recorded; and an arrow indicates your location is in use. Only one privacy indicator dot is shown at a time. For example, if both the microphone and a camera are in use, you only see a green dot. When you open Control Center, the top of the window may contain a field that shows which apps are using your microphone, location, camera, or system audio. You can click that field to open the Privacy window, which may have additional information (macOS 13.3 or later).
SupportCommunityUser wrote:
This topic lead me to a workaround: green dot at top right corner of screen - Apple Community
Basically, to get rid of the green dot, open "Photo Booth", fullscreen it, and exit full screen again.
Thank you!! I've had this issue for months and have been periodically returning to this thread (and many, many others) to try and find a solution. This is a solution that works 100% of the time.
For others:
Thank you for this solution!
Not sure if people are still having this issue but I just updated to Sonoma 14.6.1 and had it happen for the first time.
For me it was showing a green dot in the middle of my screen and a green camera that looked like the FaceTime app at the top of the screen beside my battery/wifi/control center etc. when I clicked the camera it showed me in real time lol trying to figure out wtf was going on. It said it was google chrome.
i was able to fix it by going to privacy and security > camera and toggling off google chrome (zoom still has access). It did turn the green light off and remove the camera. I went back in and toggled it back on and the light is still gone and no camera is there. seemed like an easy fix for a super annoying issue but it’s worth a try to anyone else that has this happen 🤷🏻♀️
For me it was Quicktime Player related: I had used QTP to stream an iPad screen from my MBP, ever since I had the green dot. It became evident when clicking on the control center icon in the menu bar, which mentioned QTP, when I quit the QTP app, gone was the green dot :)
maxwhyam wrote:
Its not Zoom related. I dont have zoom on my mac, and I still have this dot which drives me crazy since i think somebody has access to my camera. Its a nasty bug if you ask me, makes users feel they are being watched.
To trouble shoot further you can:
—A SafeBoot Use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support will sort many anomalies
Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled.
Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.
This test will tell you if third party interference; most* extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.
—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support
This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account.
unplug all third party peripherals when testing
Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus
all known to cause issues on the macOS
verify your software is up to date…
The current stable release of Sonoma including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 14.2
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
This topic lead me to a workaround: green dot at top right corner of screen - Apple Community
Basically, to get rid of the green dot, open "Photo Booth", fullscreen it, and exit full screen again.
Sonoma 14.2 update seems to fix this issue for me
migo33 wrote:
After installing Mac OS Sonoma there is a constant green dot on the menu bar. It disappears only after restarting the mac. The camera is not working (I hope). Seems to start when I start Zoom but it never goes away. The green dot placement can be anywhere on the menu bar. Sometimes it is in the middle and sometimes on the far right.
https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/ef4cbed4-08ed-48e6-894f-84c42c9f96fb
Sounds Zoom related....
if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/updates…
ref
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360032554051-Setting-your-presence-status
I was having the same problem but I restarted and now it's gone. I don't think it's fixed...
However, I found this post
They use this command to restart the menu bar, so it might help:
killall -KILL SystemUIServer
I'll try it if it happens again...
A side note: I don't think it's a hardware problem because I could pass the cursor on top of the dot and it would cover it. So I guess it's a software issue.
[Edited by Moderator]
For me this green dot indicated that I had a update available. I looked under 'System Setting.... General...' and yep there was an update available. Installed the update and the green dot went away.
Take a screen shot with Shift-Command-3. If it does not show up in a screen shot, that it is most likely hardware related with the Screen or Graphics Card being a likely candidate, although that still does not rule out a driver issue that could be fixed with a software update.
Take a screenshot - Apple Support
I recommend trying to ignore it, which I know is difficult. If any hardware is failing, you will likely see other symptoms. I think you can rule out the camera indicator as the green light next to camera is fixed and would not be that far away.
I have seen reports of a green dot in the menubar like from the OP on the top of this page, but not in the location of your screenshot. In all cases, there has not been a resolution provided as the original posters did not seem to update if they had ever resolved the problem and reports of this issue have not been reported by very many users.
That would eliminate any system provided notification, such as camera in use, and suggests more of a hardware problem. As stated already, it does not rule out a driver issue with the screen or Graphics Card.
Possible stuck pixel on the screen that gets refreshed for a short time when restarted. Since I do not believe that there is a software solution to this, a trip to the Apple Store may be needed for hardware diagnosis if you are unable to ignore it.
robw_ wrote:
I am currently experiencing this issue and it's driving me crazy
I thought this was addressed above...
Green dot—
It's related to the use of applications that use the camera (one ex. Zoom). When you exit "these "programs, sometimes the green dot is left behind.
One fix is to open the PhotoBooth.app full screen and then exit and then quit the app.
You can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple
I believe it indicates "Software Updates" available. I installed the latest software updates and the dot is now gone.
I think this is a bug. On screens with LED indicators, the hardware LED is turned on when the camera is in use. For other screens, a dot is rendered on screen.
When an external monitor is connected/disconnected, the green activity indicator may get shifted to another screen at an incorrect location.
A constant green dot on menu bar after installing Sonoma
