Why a Purple Dot Appeared in My Mac’s Menu Bar During VLC Playback and How I Fixed It

While watching a full-screen video in VLC on macOS, I noticed a small purple dot appear in the menu bar which I’d never seen before. It was distracting, so I set out to disable it. According to Apple Support, a purple dot means that “the system audio is being recorded.” Naturally, I assumed VLC was responsible, especially since I had previously granted it certain permissions. I tried disabling network device access and microphone access in Privacy settings, but the dot persisted.

After some trial and error, I discovered the real cause: I had SoundSource by Rogue Amoeba running, and it was continuously accessing audio. Quitting SoundSource instantly made the purple dot disappear.