What Does The Green Dot Mean On Snapchat? Activity Indicator, Explained (2024)

Snapchat users might see a green dot in more than one place in the app, but what exactly does it mean? Snapchat also has a yellow dot that appears in the Chat screen. The yellow dot is used to indicate new notifications, such as pending friend requests or friend suggestions. There are other color-coded indicators seen across the app, ranging from blue to purple to yellow. These colors are often seen on the Chat page, but they can also appear on Stories.

Snapchat users have noticed a new green dot that's displayed on the Quick Add page. This green dot appears next to the Bitmoji of suggested friends. The green dot represents the Activity Indicator, a feature that lets other Snapchat users know that they have been active on the app recently. The Activity Indicator is enabled by default, but it can be turned off in privacy settings. The green dot doesn't appear elsewhere in the app, including in Chat or user profiles, and appears to be restricted only to the Quick Add page.

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How To Turn Off Snapchat's Activity Indicator

According to My AI, Snapchat's AI chatbot, the purpose of the green Activity Indicator on Quick Add is to let users know that people they might want to add as friends are online and available to chat. This is probably to increase the likelihood of people adding friends on Snapchat. While the Activity Indicator would have been more useful on the Chat page, Snapchat seems to be using it as a tool to make users add more friends on the app.

If users want to turn the Snapchat Activity Indicator off, they can do this quite easily. Tap the Bitmoji icon in the app to open the user profile and tap Settings (gear icon). Scroll down to 'Privacy Controls' and select 'Activity Indicator.' Turn off the toggle to disable it. Once done, other Snapchatters will no longer be able to see if the user was recently active on Snapchat. However, the user will still be able to see the green dot in Quick Add for people who have the feature enabled.

What Is The Green Dot On Snapchat's Camera Screen?

Snapchat users also see a green dot in the top right corner of the camera screen. The green dot is actually a feature of the iOS and Android operating systems, and isn't exclusive to Snapchat. This dot is a privacy indicator, letting users know that Snapchat is accessing the camera (or camera and microphone). On an iPhone, users will see a small green dot that looks like an LED, while on Android, the dot may be larger or more prominent. This security feature was introduced for iPhone with iOS 14, and for Android phones with Android 12.

The green privacy indicators on Android and iPhone come in handy for users to know when an app is accessing the camera or microphone. Since Snapchat opens on the camera page, the green dot appears immediately, letting users know that the camera is being used. When swiping to the Chat or Stories screen, the green dot may still be visible, but usually disappears after a few seconds when the phone detects that the camera is no longer in use.

The green dot may reappear elsewhere on Snapchat, such as when sending Snaps to friends. Here too, the dot should disappear after the Snap has been sent. If sending a voice note to a friend, users might see an orange dot on Snapchat. This indicates that the app is using only the microphone. Users can turn off the green and orange dots by going into their phone settings and disabling camera and microphone permissions for Snapchat, but doing this will effectively render the app useless. When the camera is disabled, users will see the 'Snapchat is a camera app' error, and a prompt to allow Snapchat to access the camera in settings.

Source: Snapchat, Apple, Android