If you have spotted a small green dot next to a friend's Bitmoji or name on Snapchat and wondered what it means, the short answer is: that person is active on Snapchat at this very moment. The green dot is Snapchat's Activity Indicator, and unlike a read receipt it updates in real time. But it is not shown to everyone, and most people never realise they are broadcasting it.
What the green dot actually signals
The Activity Indicator appears when a user currently has the Snapchat app open and in the foreground. It is the closest thing Snapchat has to the "online now" green dot you know from Messenger or Instagram. When the person backgrounds or closes the app, the dot disappears within roughly a minute.
Who can see your green dot - the requirements
This is the part most guides get wrong. The Activity Indicator is a Snapchat+ feature, and several conditions must all be true for one person to see another's green dot:
| Condition | Required? |
|---|---|
| The viewer is a Snapchat+ subscriber | Yes |
| You and the other person are friends (added both ways) | Yes |
| You have messaged each other recently (active chat) | Yes |
| The other person has the app open right now | Yes |
So a stranger cannot see your green dot, and a friend who does not pay for Snapchat+ cannot either. It surfaces inside the Chat tab and on the Friendship Profile, next to people you actively talk to.
How to turn the green dot off
You can stop broadcasting your Activity Indicator even if other people pay for Snapchat+:
- Open Snapchat and tap your profile icon (top-left).
- Tap the gear icon to open Settings.
- Scroll to Privacy Controls and open Activity Indicator.
- Toggle it off. Your dot stops showing to everyone immediately.
Turning it off is symmetric in spirit but not in function: disabling your own indicator hides your status. Seeing other people's dots still requires you to have Snapchat+.
Green dot vs other Snapchat status signals
Snapchat has several "presence" cues that are easy to confuse. Here is how the green dot differs from the rest:
| Signal | Means | Real-time? |
|---|---|---|
| Green dot (Activity Indicator) | App is open right now | Yes |
| Bitmoji on Snap Map | Last known location when app was last open | No (last active) |
| "Typing" pencil icon | Composing a chat to you | Yes |
| Read receipt | Your message/snap was opened | One-time event |
Privacy takeaway
The green dot is a genuine real-time presence signal, so if you value privacy it is worth knowing it exists and disabling it. It only ever applies to people you actively chat with, and only Snapchat+ subscribers can see it - but "online now" is sensitive information regardless. If your wider concern is who can see your activity and stories, our guides on who can see your profile views and what a public profile reveals cover the rest of Snapchat's visibility settings.