We don't hide the recording indicator

01 The dot

When any app records your screen, macOS puts an indicator in the menu bar. It is deliberate. Apple wants the person at the keyboard — and the person looking over their shoulder — to know a recorder is running. Applications cannot turn it off.

They can try to work around it, though. Recording only when the screen changes. Capturing through a different API. Making the capture window so brief the indicator flickers instead of staying lit. For a tool that records everything you do all day, the temptation to make the dot go away is real, because the dot makes some people uncomfortable.

We are not going to do any of that. If Pixel Dust is recording, your Mac says so. Every second, for as long as it runs.

02 Why we'd rather you saw it

A screen-memory tool is only worth using if you trust it completely, and trust that has to be taken on faith is worth very little. The indicator is the one part of the system that is not ours. We did not write it, we cannot disable it, and it does not care what our privacy page says. When it is lit, we are recording; when it is dark, we are not. You can verify that yourself, without reading a line of our code.

The alternative is a recorder you cannot see. That is the shape of a keylogger. We would rather be conspicuous.

03 What that means day to day

It means the dot is on when you share your screen in a meeting, and your colleagues may ask about it. It means it is on when someone borrows your Mac. We think both of those are features. The person you are screen-sharing with has a reasonable interest in knowing a recorder is running, and the answer — "it stays on my Mac and I can show you" — is a better conversation than one you did not get to have.

If there are moments you would rather not record, the answer is to stop recording, and we make that a one-click pause from the menu bar. What we will not do is keep recording and hide it.