Using the Calls panel
The Calls bar, the Calls panel’s controls, quick pills, Visual awareness and the questions that stop a call closing by accident.
Start the call
Press ⌘\ or let Cluinn detect the meeting, and the Calls bar opens:
- Type a Title (optional).
- Pick a folder. The call is filed there as soon as it’s saved. The picker has a search field, and a New folder row at the bottom that creates one without leaving the bar.
- Pick a preset: your quick pills, answer language, Smart Cards setting and role. See Call presets.
- Press Start. (✕ closes the bar without starting.)
The folder picker appears once you have a folder. The preset is there from the start, showing the General preset every new account begins with.
During the call
The panel’s top bar holds Minimize on the left, then Pin, which is on by default and keeps the panel above every other window (switch it off to let the meeting app cover it). Next come the Live badge and a picker for answer length that reads Answer short; the choices are Very short, Short (the default) and Descriptive, and your choice is remembered on this Mac for live answers. Pause and End sit on the right.
- Ask anything: type into Ask anything about the call... and the answer appears as it’s written, with headings, lists and code you can copy. It’s a conversation, so follow-up questions remember the thread.
- Earlier answers: the panel shows one answer at a time. Once there’s more than one, ‹ and › appear in the top bar, just left of Pause, to step back through this call’s earlier answers. That only changes what’s on screen; your next question still continues the same thread.
- Stop: while an answer is being written, the send button becomes Stop, which drops the answer there and then.
- Copy answer: a small copy button sits under a finished answer. It turns into a checkmark for a moment when you click it. It appears only for a finished answer to something you asked.
- Quick pills: one-click questions from the active call preset, always on screen. A new account’s General preset starts with What should I say?, What did they mean?, Catch me up and Define that.
- Visual awareness: the screen icon at the left of the ask box lets answers look at your screen. It stays on until you switch it off, so every question you ask meanwhile includes a picture of the screen your meeting is on.
- Pause: stops recording without ending the call. The badge dims to Paused and the button becomes Resume.
- Minimize: shrinks the panel to a small chip; Live, Pin, Pause and End stay clickable on it.
If an answer needs something the call itself doesn’t contain, it pauses on a globe and “Searching…” while it looks it up. The finished answer then carries a Looked up … sources line (for example “Looked up 3 sources”). Open it for the list; a row opens that page in your default browser, not in the panel.
Below the panel is the Smart Cards strip: things the call raised without you asking.
The panel floats above full-screen meetings. Cluinn asks macOS to leave it out of your own screen share, but that’s best-effort: on macOS 15 and later, meeting apps can capture it anyway. If you share your screen, drag the panel onto a display you aren’t sharing.
The first time the panel opens, a short walkthrough points out the title, folder and preset fields, then Start. On your first live call, a second one points out the ask box and End. Each runs once.
If the other side isn’t being heard
When system audio isn’t being captured, a warning stays up in the panel with a Grant access button: “Only your microphone is being recorded — the other participants aren’t captured. Grant Screen & System Audio Recording, then reopen the panel.” Recording carries on with your mic only in the meantime, and the warning stays until it’s fixed. See Permissions.
If the connection drops, the badge itself reads Connection lost momentarily, retrying, with no banner, so the panel doesn’t jump. Recording keeps going and nothing from the gap is lost: anything still waiting is transcribed once the connection is back. After about 5 minutes offline, Cluinn asks: Save & close (keeping everything so far) or Keep trying.
Ending a call
Press End to save and close. A short Finishing up… moment adds the last few seconds to the transcript, then the call appears under Calls in the sidebar. See Saved calls & chat.
A call never closes without asking:
| What happens | Cluinn asks |
|---|---|
⌘W, ⌘Q or ⌘\ pressed during a call | Close this call? |
| A long stretch of silence | Still there? |
| The meeting app closes | Call over? |
Each one offers the same three answers: Discard, Save or Continue recording. Discard needs a second click before it does anything. While Close this call? is up, recording carries on, and Esc or the hotkey closes the question. Still there? and Call over? pause recording while they wait; if someone speaks, or the same meeting comes back, recording resumes. A call with nothing in it closes without asking.
The in-call chat isn’t kept after the panel closes: the saved transcript and its takeaways are what you keep. Call audio is never stored on Cluinn’s servers and never backed up.
Who can use Calls
Calls is part of Pro, and the free trial includes it, whichever plan you picked. If the trial’s hours run out during a call, the call you’re on is still saved. Details in Plans & trials.
On Pro, a single call can run up to a set maximum length, within a monthly pool of hours. The figures are in the fair-use section of our Terms.