Which Apps Have Camera and Microphone Access?
A green dot in the menu bar means something is using your camera at this moment. It says nothing about the longer list of apps that could turn it on whenever they want.
The indicator dots, and their limit
Since macOS Monterey, an orange dot in the menu bar means an app is actively using the microphone right now, and green means the camera. Click the dot to see which app. This is real-time only. It tells you nothing about which apps have standing permission to use either one whenever they choose, which is the more useful list for a privacy check.
Seeing the full permission list
- Open System Settings.
- Click Privacy & Security.
- Click Camera, or separately, Microphone.
Each shows every app that has ever requested access, toggled on or off. Off doesn't mean deleted, it means the app asked once, you said yes, and it's sitting there with permission it isn't currently using. Go through both lists and turn off anything for an app that has no real reason to need it, an app you rarely open, or one where the camera or mic access doesn't obviously map to what it does.
Worth checking alongside these
The same Privacy & Security pane has several other categories worth a similar pass:
- Full Disk Access, which lets an app read essentially anything on the Mac, including other apps' data. This is a much bigger grant than camera or microphone and deserves closer scrutiny of what's listed there.
- Screen Recording, which lets an app see and capture whatever's on your display.
- Contacts, Photos, Calendars, the more familiar data-access categories.
What's behind these permissions technically
macOS tracks every one of these grants in a system database called TCC (Transparency, Consent and Control), stored per-user. The System Settings panel is a front end onto that database. It's the same mechanism that governs Full Disk Access, so an audit of one is effectively an audit of the same underlying store.
A full audit of what every app can access, not just camera and mic
CleanMachine's Privacy Spy audits the same TCC database System Settings reads from, showing every granted and denied permission with timestamps, so nothing sits forgotten. Free to scan.
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