Troubleshooting

macOS puts a quarantine flag on apps downloaded from the web. Download Cluinn again from the download page and drag it into Applications again. If it still won’t open, remove the quarantine flag: open Terminal, run xattr -cr /Applications/Cluinn.app, then open the app.

Cluinn needs the Accessibility permission to type where your cursor is. Check the status row in Settings → Privacy, or go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and switch Cluinn on. Your text is also copied to the clipboard, so you can paste it with ⌘V in the meantime. More in Permissions.

Check the Microphone permission first, in Settings → Privacy. If it’s granted and a recording starts with no sound reaching Cluinn, the pill shows Microphone not detected after a couple of seconds, with your inputs listed so you can switch and start again.

You can also change the input in Settings → Dictation → Microphone, in case you chose a device that’s no longer plugged in. Pick the right one, or leave it on System default and Cluinn follows devices as they come and go.

Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and add Cluinn yourself under Microphone, Accessibility and, for Calls, Screen Recording (Screen & System Audio Recording on macOS 15 and later). After granting it, reopen the Calls panel; if the other side still isn’t heard, quit and reopen Cluinn.

The default is ⌘⇧Space, and another app may be using it. Open Settings → General → Transcribe hotkey and set a new one; it can even be a mouse button. See Hotkeys.

The other participants come through system audio, which needs the Screen Recording permission (called Screen & System Audio Recording on macOS 15 and later). When it’s missing, the Calls panel says so and shows a Grant access button: click it and approve. The call keeps recording from your microphone in the meantime, so your side is never lost.

The Calls bar opens when the meeting’s window is open and the meeting app is using your microphone; a meeting window that isn’t connected yet won’t do it. The Teams desktop app is the unreliable one, so start those calls yourself with ⌘\. If you closed the Calls bar in the last 5 minutes, it waits out those 5 minutes before reopening, and if you removed the app in Settings → Calls → Open automatically, it won’t open for that app. See What Calls does and Calls settings.

Dictation has a daily ceiling, and it resets the next day. Nothing is lost: everything recorded up to that point was transcribed. The figure is in the fair-use section of our Terms.

You’ve reached the monthly allowance for Calls or for dictation, and the message quotes your limit. It comes with a View usage button that opens the Usage sheet, which has been showing a note since you passed 80% of the month’s hours.

Nothing is taken away: every call and dictation you already have stays where it is, and the hours renew on the 1st. See Usage.

That’s the maximum length for a single call (“Call reached its maximum length”). Everything up to that point was saved. Start a new call to keep going; it counts toward the same monthly hours.

Calls is part of Pro, and the free trial includes it; on Basic, Calls is locked. Click the account chip at the bottom of the sidebar and open Plan to upgrade. See Plans & trials.

Open the saved call and use People (top right) to rename or merge speakers in that call. To rename someone across every call, open People from All your calls. If names never appear during calls, check that Cluinn has the Screen Recording permission: names come from the meeting window, so without it Cluinn has far less to go on. More in Speaker names.

Updates download in the background, and nothing is shown while one downloads. When it’s ready, an Update button appears at the bottom of the sidebar; click it to relaunch. Quitting Cluinn as usual installs it too. To check by hand, use Settings → General → Check now. If updating fails, that button reads Download instead: clicking it either downloads a fresh copy straight away or opens an Update failed card with Retry and Download manually, which gets the same version directly from Cluinn.

macOS won’t let Cluinn update itself while it runs from your Downloads folder or the disk image. Click Move to Applications, or drag Cluinn into your Applications folder yourself, and the update carries on. The same message appears when Cluinn is in a folder your account can’t change, or when your Mac is short of space; free up the space it names and it continues.

Some releases fix something that can’t be left running, such as a security or compatibility problem, so the app waits on an Update required screen until the update is installed. It shows the version you have and the minimum required (for example, “You have 0.7.14 · Requires 0.7.16 or newer”), then downloads the update; click Restart to update when it’s ready.

If it can’t download, the same button becomes Download update, Download it again or Try again, depending on what went wrong, and a Download it manually link appears under it. Nothing on your Mac is touched while you wait: your recordings and calls are all still there afterwards.

The AI behind dictation and Calls runs through Cluinn’s servers. Cluinn transcribes on your own Mac wherever it can: on a recent Apple silicon Mac with an active plan, your speech becomes text on the machine itself, with no external speech model and no audio uploaded. During a trial, or any time Cluinn can’t run the on-device model, the audio is sent to our servers to be turned into text and discarded straight after. Even where transcription happens on your Mac, the clean-up that shapes a dictation into your persona’s voice needs a connection. Check your internet connection and press Try again. Your recordings and transcripts are safe on your Mac either way, and nothing is lost while you’re offline.

Unexpected errors show a Report button: click it and the details come straight to us, with none of your content attached. If it keeps happening, tell us roughly what you were doing when it appeared: Contact & support.

Still stuck? Contact & support.