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Binoculars Icon On Mac? What Does That Mean?

Last updated on December 29, 2018 By Serhat Kurt 25 Comments

You may see a binoculars icon while you are using your Mac. This icon may appear either on Mac lock / login screen or while you are using your Mac. This short article explains what the binoculars icons mean.

The binoculars icons mean completely different things and they can tell you different things:

  • if you see it on the lock login screen, it means that your computer is actively creating a video of your screen
  • If you see it while your computer is unlocked, it means that you enabled the “Remote Management” option on your Mac.

Binoculars Icon On Lock Screen

Did you see the binoculars icon on the Mac’s lock (or login screen)? And you were wondering what this icon meant? I was using my computer yesterday and then suddenly I realized this binoculars icon appeared. That was surprising because I did not change any settings that might cause this.

This particular icon appears on lock / login screen in the menu bar (also called status menus), located in the top-right corner of the screen, on Mac (please see the image below). And when the icon is clicked, nothing happens.

binoculars sign on Mac login screen, what it means

This icon means that you are currently recording your screen meaning your Mac is creating a video of your screen. Mac OS Mojave introduced new screen recording features and controls. We previously explain how you can record your screen. To use this new feature, simply press the Shift-Command (⌘)-5 keys and click the recording icons, you can record your entire screen or you can record a selected portion of your screen. To stop this recording, you can press the recording icon in the menu bar. And while you are recording, if you lock or sleep your screen in macOS, you will see this binoculars icon indicating a recording is going on.

You can also create screen video recordings with QuickTime. You can do this easily. Simply first open the QuickTime app, and go to File > New Screen Recording. And while you are recording, if you lock your screen, again you will see this binoculars icon.

So, it is possible that you accidentaly started recording. Simply click the “Stop” icon in the menu bar and recording will end and the binoculars icon will disappear from the lock screen.

stop recording

Binoculars Icon When Your Mac Is Active and Unlocked

You may also see the binoculars icon in the menu bar while you are using your Mac. Binocular icons (sometimes bold black and sometimes light grey) may appear in the menu bar while your Mac is active (screen is not locked). This is related to Apple Remote Desktop administration. You willingly or unwillingly enabled “Remote Management”. If this is the case, you will NOT see the binocular icon on the lock screen. If you lock your screen, the icon will disappear.

binoculars icon in the menu bar

When you click this icon, you will see a few options:

  • No administrator
  • Message to Administrator
  • Open Sharing Preferences…

To see your current Remote Management settings, on your Mac, simply go to System Preferences > Sharing. “Remote Management” option is probably selected. This means that others can view and manage your computer remotely. If you uncheck this option, the binoculars icon will disappear. However, you may want to enable this option and just get rid of the icon. Again simply go to System Preferences > Sharing, select Remote Management and click the “Computer Settings”  and uncheck the “Show Remote Management status in menu bar” box. Now the binoculars icon will disappear while Remote Management is turned on.

remote management iconWhen your computer is accessed remotely the Binoculars icon will change indicating that you Mac is being controlled remotely:

remote management icon

See also: 7 Tricks To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Your Mac

Filed Under: How to Tagged With: Binoculars

Comments

  1. Paul Nozicka says

    June 30, 2020 at 5:15 pm

    If you are using Airplay and lock your computer, the binocular icon will also appear on your Lock Screen

    Reply
  2. SeanH says

    November 26, 2019 at 10:42 pm

    Thanks, this happened to me. I’m pretty sure it was Slack for me as well.

    Reply
  3. GC says

    July 25, 2019 at 4:32 pm

    My issue was slack. Googled this because I saw the noculars on my lock screen. I had just came off a slack screenshare about 5 mins before. Closed slack and the icon was no more. Thanks

    Reply
  4. Esme says

    June 28, 2019 at 9:22 am

    Slack was the culprit in my case. Closed and set computer to sleep mode and binoculars were gone.

    Reply
  5. Mentor says

    June 28, 2019 at 8:39 am

    This happens also on lock screen because a bug in Slack. Restart Slack and the binoculars are gone.

    Reply
    • TR says

      June 29, 2019 at 2:17 am

      Thanks, it fixed my issue

      Reply
    • Ryan says

      July 2, 2019 at 12:26 pm

      Thanks Mentor! Slack was indeed the culprit for me. Had some quirkiness with a video call earlier in the day and much later noticed the icon on the lock screen. Killing slack made it go away.

      Reply
    • Robert says

      July 5, 2019 at 11:44 am

      Awesome! It was/is slack. I have stopped it and the icon disappeared.

      Reply
    • gorotis says

      July 8, 2019 at 11:07 am

      Thanks, this drove me crazy 😀

      Reply
    • jo says

      July 8, 2019 at 11:40 am

      Restarting Slack worked!
      Thanks!

      Reply
    • PP says

      July 10, 2019 at 8:49 am

      You are right, Mine got fixed after the restart of Slack. Thanks.

      Reply
    • Chris C says

      July 10, 2019 at 10:27 pm

      Mentor: Likely the _only_ reason slack causes that is so that it can do that fancy blur effect when you resize the screen in “split full screen mode”

      Reply
    • Ashley L. says

      July 11, 2019 at 6:01 pm

      Thank you Mentor! This did the trick for me! 🙂

      Reply
    • iTrooper says

      July 15, 2019 at 9:02 am

      Thanks!!. Yes, in my case I am using both Duet and Slack. But looks like it is Slack the one that shows the binoculars while opened.

      Reply
  6. guido theelen says

    June 26, 2019 at 8:10 am

    In my case it was Slack, closing it made the icon disappear.

    Reply
    • Jack Black says

      December 5, 2019 at 8:23 pm

      That did it for me also, thanks!

      Reply
  7. JvG says

    June 15, 2019 at 1:33 am

    This also happens in some cases if you are using multiple monitors. See this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/bg6mde/mystery_binoculars_icon_on_lock_screen/

    Reply
  8. Lance J says

    April 30, 2019 at 5:45 pm

    I am not recording my screen, but whenever my comp goes to sleep or I lock my screen, the binoculars appear as if my screen is recording. Does it mean spyware? How can I stop it from ever recording??

    Reply
    • Eduardo says

      July 5, 2019 at 8:11 am

      Are you using Slack? The same was happening to me and I just closed Slack, reloaded into the machine and the binoculars were gone. Someone mentioned it below and it did the trick.

      Reply
      • M says

        August 14, 2019 at 3:59 pm

        Thank you. This was my issue. Had me worried that I was hacked.

        Reply
      • Guillaume says

        September 11, 2019 at 6:19 am

        many thanks. I was wondering what happened and this was my issue too.

        Reply
  9. David Stark says

    March 11, 2019 at 8:43 pm

    This’ll also happen if you lock your screen while running Duet Display on connected iPad.

    Reply
    • M says

      March 19, 2019 at 6:19 am

      Came here because this happened to me!

      Reply
    • Kyle Yarden says

      April 11, 2019 at 1:34 pm

      Thank you! I was wondering what was happening because screen recording prevents the Mac from being unlocked by an Apple Watch.

      Reply
    • El says

      April 16, 2019 at 3:11 pm

      Thank you for adding that! Scared me for a second. I’ve been using duet for a few years, I’d never seen that icon before.

      Reply

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