You should know what the orange and green dots at the top of your phone mean

Recently, we received a question from Teresa, who emailed us asking:

What does the little orange dot in the right hand corner of my iPhone?

The orange and green dots you see at the top of your screen are part of an enhanced privacy and security update for iOS 14 or later. Learn more about what these notification dots mean below, not only for iPhones but Androids too!

 

What does it mean if you see the on the top of your iPhone?

whenever using voice-to-text to dictate text messages to your friends and family.

If you see the , you can:

• Swipe down from the top right of your screen to reveal which apps are using your microphone
• You’ll see the orange icon at the top of your screen with the device next to it
• In the case below, the app that is using the microphone is the iPhone

 

What does it mean if you see the on the top of your iPhone?

When a green dot appears in the top-right corner of your screen — right above your cellular bars — this means that an app is using either the camera or the camera with the microphone on your phone.

Which iPhone apps are using your camera?

Like the orange dot, if you see the , you can:

• Swipe down from the top right of your screen to reveal which apps are using your camera or camera with the microphone
• You’ll see the green icon at the top of your screen with the device next to it
• In the case below, the app that is using the camera is Facetime

 

What does it mean if you see the on the top of your Android device?

If you’ve got an Android 12 or later, you’ll notice that there’s only a green dot indicator (no orange dot) indicator in the top right corner of your screen that will inform you when the phone’s camera or microphone is being used by an app. When an app first accesses your camera or microphone, you’ll see a camera icon and a microphone icon before it changes to simply a green dot. This dot will remain on for as long as the app uses your microphone or camera.

Which Android apps are using your microphone or camera?

If you see the , you can:

• Swipe down from the top of your screen to show the notification bar

• Click the , will see which apps are using your camera or microphone

What if an app is using my microphone or camera and I can’t find it to delete the app?

Lock up your tech

Now that you know what those green and orange dots mean – what other questions do you have that we can answer? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.