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When I'm working with certain applications / windows in Mac OS X (I'm using 10.8, although I'm not sure that's relevant), I sometimes see a black dot in the centre of the red window close button. What does this mean? I've seen it most often in Terminal.app, although I think it also happens in other applications too.

I'm talking about this:

enter image description here

versus the normal state of this:

enter image description here

4 Answers 4

61

Specifically, it means that hitting that button will produce a prompt rather than immediately performing the action of closing the window. While this is usually a save dialog, it could be anything requiring further user action.

In this sense, it is equivalent to ellipses on the ends of menu entries.

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  • 8
    THAT'S WHAT THE ELLIPSES MEANS? I NEVER KNEW THAT! [/caps lock] Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 21:03
  • 4
    A fun example: open the Apple menu and press alt/option. Observe the ‘Restart…’ and ‘Shut Down…’ buttons.
    – colons
    Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 21:23
  • 1
    The old explanation that the dot in the close button means the document is "dirty" and not saved or interruptible isn't called out in the Human Interface Guidelines. Now that versions and Auto Save are being pushed, this dot will mean there is a problem saving (disk full) more than just an unsaved change. See pages 105, 144, 160 and 178 in the PDF version of the HIG.
    – bmike
    Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 22:40
19

In most apps, it's an indicator that there's an open file with unsaved changes (although this is less common now that many apps use OS X auto save). In Terminal it indicates a process is running in the window.

7

I like to think that it's a gentle remainder: "Something is going on here, and if you close this window, whatever is going on here will be interrupted or lost".

On most apps, it means that the file has been updated (it's "dirty"), and that you will receive a prompt asking if you want to save it or not. Talking specifically about the Terminal, it's telling you that there's a task running, and closing the window will kill the task.

0

If you have the texteditor open and your file isn't saved, then does it appear. Press cmd+save to save.

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    How does this differ from other answers?
    – mmmmmm
    Commented Jun 23, 2015 at 15:02

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