General settings

Your two hotkeys, PDF downloads, theme and recorder position, the Dock and menu-bar icons, launch at login and checking for updates.

Click your account chip at the bottom of the sidebar and choose Settings. It opens on the General tab.

Settings at a glance

The Settings sidebar has three groups:

Settings: General (this page), Account (see Account & billing), Security (see Security), Privacy (see Privacy settings) and Notifications (see Notifications).
Features: Dictation (see Dictation settings), plus Calls and Coach on accounts with Calls (see Calls settings and Coach).
Your data: Memory (see Memory) and Content (see Content), plus Backup on every plan, though not during a free trial (see Sync & backup).

Usage and your Plan aren’t Settings tabs: they open from the same account-chip menu. See Usage and Plans & trials.

Shortcuts

The first group on the page. Two rows, each with Change and Reset:

Row	Default
Transcribe hotkey	`⌘⇧Space`
Calls hotkey	`⌘\`

Click Change and press what you want; Reset puts the default back. On Transcribe hotkey, the prompt reads “Press a key combo or mouse button…”, so a spare mouse button works as well as a key combination. Calls hotkey takes a key combination only, and its row appears only on accounts with Calls. More in Hotkeys.

Downloads

Ask before downloading PDFs: “Show options every time before downloading a PDF.” On by default, so a sheet appears before each download for you to choose what goes in. Turn it off and downloads use whatever you picked last time. See Saved calls & chat.

Where the finished dictation goes (After transcription) and whether recordings are kept are in Dictation settings. How long deleted calls are kept is in Calls settings.

Appearance

Theme, the recorder pill’s position and the Dock and menu-bar icons.

Theme

System, Light or Dark. System follows your Mac’s appearance, including its light and dark mode.

Tip: Press ⌘⇧L anywhere, even outside Settings, to switch between light and dark.

Recorder position

Where the dictation pill appears while you record: Bottom center, Bottom left, Bottom right, Top center, Top left or Top right. The pill shows only while you’re dictating, and you can also drag it; picking a position here moves it back. See Dictating & paste options.

Show in Dock: “Show Cluinn’s icon in the Dock.” Right-click the icon for Start / Stop Recording, Open Dashboard and your recent calls.
Show in Menu Bar: “Show Cluinn’s icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen.” Its menu has Start / Stop Recording, Open Dashboard and Quit Cluinn.

Both are on by default. Keep both, or use Cluinn from the menu bar only.

Note: Everything in this group applies to this Mac only, so it doesn’t follow your account. See Sync & backup.

Startup

Launch at login: “Open Cluinn automatically when you log in to your Mac.” Off by default.

Updates

Cluinn updates itself in the background and shows nothing while it downloads. Once the new version is ready, an Update button appears at the bottom of the sidebar; click it to relaunch. Quitting Cluinn as usual installs it too.

Check for updates → Check now looks for a new version and tells you either that it’s downloading or that you’re up to date. Cluinn → Check for Updates… in the macOS menu bar does the same.

If the automatic update can’t finish, the same button reads Download instead. Clicking it downloads and installs the new version; if that fails too, the card it opens has Retry and Download manually. When macOS won’t let Cluinn update itself (for example because it’s running from your Downloads folder), see Troubleshooting.