Common problems, quick fixes.

1. Open Parlo — the sign-in window opens a magic link in your browser.
2. Click the link in the email you receive; no password needed.
3. Parlo picks the session back up automatically once you approve it.

1. Check your internet connection — Parlo needs it occasionally to renew your license, but keeps working normally offline in between.
2. If you're online and still see this, try again shortly; it heals silently the moment it can reach the server.

1. Update your payment method from the billing link in the message.
2. Parlo keeps working normally while it's in this state — nothing is interrupted right away.

1. Click View Plans in the message to resubscribe.
2. Once your subscription is active again, reopen Parlo — it picks up the new license automatically.

1. Click Parlo in the Dock to open its window: Home, Meetings, Dictation History and Settings.
2. No Dock icon? Press Cmd + Space, type “Parlo”, and press Return: that opens the same window while Parlo is running.
3. Parlo also has a menu bar icon, but on a full menu bar macOS can hide it behind the notch.

The Dock icon arrived in 0.1.34 and can be turned off in Settings → General (“Show Parlo in the Dock”).

1. Open your Applications folder in Finder and double-click Parlo to launch it again.
2. Or press Cmd + Space, type “Parlo”, and press Return.

Granting Input Monitoring (and sometimes Accessibility) needs Parlo to quit and reopen once before the change takes effect — that relaunch prompt is expected, and if the app doesn't come back on its own, just open it from Applications.

1. Leave the setup window open and stay on Wi-Fi — Parlo is downloading its on-device speech and language models (a couple of GB) one time.
2. Wait for both models to finish; Parlo intentionally won't arm the dictation/command hotkey until they're ready.

The progress bar can appear to pause while a single large file transfers — that's normal, it keeps going. Everything runs on your Mac after this one-time download.

1. Parlo requires macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later.
2. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs (M-series).

1. Sign in at parlohub.com/auth with the email you used at checkout.
2. Use the Download Parlo link shown after you sign in.
3. Open the file, drag Parlo into Applications, open it, and sign in once more inside the app.

Your license follows your email, so reinstalling or moving to a new Mac only needs that sign-in.

1. You don't need to: Parlo checks for updates and offers to install new versions itself.
2. To check right away, click the menu bar icon → Check for Updates….

See what changed in each version on the changelog at parlohub.com/changelog.

1. Click the menu bar icon → Settings… and open General.
2. Under Dictation or Act, click Change… next to Shortcut.
3. Press the keys you want: modifiers on their own or combined (Right ⌥, fn ⇧), or a key with modifiers (⌥ Space, F5).
4. Hold the new shortcut to talk and release to run. Reset to fn brings back the default.

Each action can also have a second shortcut, handy on an external keyboard without an fn key. If you hold a modifier shortcut and type another key, Parlo cancels, so a shortcut like ⇧ still types capitals.

1. Read the message under the shortcut: it says why.
2. Pick a different combination, or first change the shortcut that's in the way.

A shortcut can't be used twice, can't include fn while fn is still the built-in shortcut, can't be a plain letter without a modifier (it would stop that key from typing), and can't be Esc or Return, which cancel and confirm in Parlo. If macOS itself refuses a key combination, another app or a system shortcut already owns it.

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring and enable Parlo.
2. Quit and reopen Parlo — Input Monitoring only takes effect after a relaunch.

By default, hold fn alone to dictate and fn + ctrl to give a command; if you changed them, Settings → General shows your current shortcuts. Holding fn with another key (like fn + arrow) is treated as a normal modifier and won't start capture.

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and enable Parlo.
2. Quit and reopen Parlo if the text still doesn't appear.

Accessibility is what lets Parlo type your dictated words into whatever app you're focused on.

1. Your words aren't lost: click Copy in the notch and paste them where you want.
2. Next time, click into the text field first, then hold your shortcut.
3. Seeing it in Slack, Claude, VS Code or another Electron app with the cursor in a text box? That was a bug in 0.1.32: menu bar icon → Check for Updates… to get 0.1.33.

Parlo checks for a text field before typing so your dictation never disappears into a window that can't take text. Everything you dictate is also in the menu bar icon → Dictation History….

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard.
2. Set “Press 🌐 key to” to Do Nothing.

macOS otherwise intercepts the globe/fn key for its own action, which gets in the way of fn-hold dictation.

1. Click the menu bar icon → Settings…, open Privacy, and allow Calendar.
2. If it doesn't take effect right after you click Allow, quit and reopen Parlo — a relaunch registers it.

Calendar is optional. It powers meeting detection and the calendar commands (“what's on my calendar tomorrow?”), and never affects dictation. If it still won't stick, you can also enable Parlo under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars.

1. Hold the command shortcut (fn + ctrl by default) and say what you're looking for, then release.
2. Files: “find the lease PDF from last month”, “where did I save the tax return”, “show me my screenshots from today”.
3. Apple Notes: “search my notes for wifi”, “find the note about the trip”.
4. Mail: “find emails from Ana about the contract”, “any emails from Stripe today?”.
5. Calendar: “what's on my calendar tomorrow?”, “what's my next meeting?”, “am I free on Friday?”.
6. Click a result in the notch to open it. Files also have a folder button to show them in Finder.

Search is read-only and runs on your Mac: nothing is uploaded, and it works offline. It needs Parlo 0.1.37 or later on macOS 15 or later. Spanish works too (“busca en mis notas la receta”, “qué tengo mañana”).

1. Check that Spotlight finds it: press ⌘ Space and type part of the name. Parlo searches the same Spotlight index, so a folder excluded in System Settings → Spotlight, or an external drive, won't show up in Parlo either.
2. Let Parlo see the folder: macOS hides Desktop, Documents, Downloads and cloud folders like Google Drive or Dropbox from apps you haven't allowed. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files & Folders, find Parlo and turn on the folders you want searched.
3. Add the type or the time if you remember it: “find the invoice PDF from last week” narrows the search to PDFs changed or opened last week.

Parlo searches your home folder, including iCloud Drive and cloud storage folders, and matches words in file names and in the text inside documents. The notch shows the six best matches; when there are more, Show all opens the full list in a Finder window.

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Automation.
2. Find Parlo and turn on Notes, Mail, or both.
3. Ask again. The first search asks whether Parlo may control Notes or Mail; if you clicked Don't Allow, this is where to change it.

Parlo only reads: it lists matching notes and messages and opens the one you click, and never edits, moves or sends anything. Mail search covers the inbox of Apple's Mail app (by sender and subject), and opens Mail if it isn't running. Gmail or Outlook in a browser aren't searched.

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Calendars.
2. Set Parlo to Full Access. “Add Events Only” lets Parlo create events but not read your schedule.
3. Ask again: “what's on my calendar today?”

If Parlo has never asked before, it shows the macOS prompt the first time you ask about your calendar. Declined events and cancelled ones are left out of the list.

1. That's on purpose since 0.1.37: before typing, Parlo reads a few words around your cursor so the dictation fits. It keeps a continued sentence in lowercase, capitalizes a new one, adds the missing space after the previous word, and drops the period when you dictate into the middle of a sentence. Since 0.1.38 this also works in apps like Claude, Slack and VS Code.
2. If one app gets it wrong (usually because it reports the wrong cursor position), you can turn it off: open Terminal, run defaults write com.parlohub.parlo Parlo.dictationContextFitDisabled -bool true and dictate again.
3. To turn it back on, run the same command with false instead of true.

The text around your cursor is read at the moment of typing and discarded: it's never stored, logged or sent anywhere, and password fields are never read. Names stay capitalized, and so do “I” and acronyms.

1. Update to Parlo 0.1.38 or later (menu bar icon → Check for Updates…). Earlier versions couldn't read the text around the cursor in these apps, so they couldn't add the space.
2. The first dictation right after opening one of these apps can still miss it while the app gets ready; the next ones fit.

Apps like Claude, Slack, VS Code, Discord and Notion are built on Electron, which hides its text from other apps until asked. Parlo asks when you press the dictation shortcut, and only reads a few words around the cursor at the moment of typing.

1. Click Allow. The first time you record a meeting, macOS shows this one-time prompt so Parlo can save your recordings.
2. Parlo stores each meeting's audio, transcript, and notes in Documents → Parlo Meetings.

If you dismissed or denied it and meetings won't save, re-enable it under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders → Parlo (Documents Folder), then start a new recording.

1. Start a meeting recording — macOS prompts for system-audio recording the first time and you'll need to allow it.
2. If you declined earlier, re-enable it under System Settings → Privacy & Security, then record again.

Parlo captures your microphone and the system audio locally. Audio is never uploaded; only the transcript text goes to Parlo Cloud or a provider you chose, and only if that's your notes setting.

1. Parlo watches for the app you were meeting through (FaceTime, Zoom, Teams, Slack, or Meet in a browser) to release the microphone, then about 10 seconds later offers “Meeting ended — stop recording & take notes?” in the notch.
2. Click Stop & save to end it and start transcription, or Keep recording to keep going. If the call is still over, Parlo asks again 5 minutes later, and once more 10 minutes after that.
3. If it doesn't appear, you can always stop manually from the notch pill or the menu bar icon.

This only fires for calls through another app that was actually using your mic — a recording you start manually (e.g. for an in-person conversation) is never interrupted this way.

1. Open Parlo (click it in the Dock, or menu bar icon → Meetings…) and click Record in the toolbar.
2. Or click the menu bar icon → Record Meeting Now.
3. Click Stop Recording (or the stop button in the notch) when you're done; the notes follow a moment later.

Parlo also offers to record on its own: at a calendar meeting's start time (with Join & record when the invite has a Zoom, Google Meet or Teams link), or when another app starts using the microphone.

1. Click the pause button on the recording pill in the notch, or the menu bar icon → Pause Recording.
2. Click play on the pill (or Resume Recording) to pick up where you left off.

Nothing is recorded while paused, from your mic or the other side. The transcript shows where the pause was, like “(Recording paused for 4 min)”.

1. Click the menu bar icon: while a meeting is being processed, a greyed line at the top says what's happening, like “Transcribing “Weekly sync”…” or “Writing notes for “Weekly sync” with Parlo Cloud…”.
2. In the Parlo window, the meeting shows the same status under its title and in its notes pane until the notes are ready.
3. When they're ready, the notch shows “Meeting notes ready” with an Open notes button, and the menu offers Latest Notes.

Since 0.1.38 the menu bar icon always stays the Parlo icon, recording included, so it's easy to find. A recording in progress shows in the notch pill and in macOS's own microphone indicator.

1. When a meeting's notes are ready, click Open notes in the notch.
2. Or click the menu bar icon → Latest Notes.
3. Or hold the command shortcut (fn + ctrl by default) and say “open my last meeting”, “open the notes from the call with Ana” or “pull up yesterday's meeting”.

By voice, Parlo matches the meeting's title, the people in the invite and the day, then what was said in the meeting, and opens the newest match. “Open notes” on its own still opens Apple Notes.

1. Open the meeting in the Parlo window and click Follow-up in the toolbar. Or click the menu bar icon → Draft Follow-up… for your latest meeting, or say “draft a follow-up for my last meeting”.
2. Parlo picks 1:1 email when there was one other person, Team recap otherwise. Switch at the top if it guessed wrong.
3. Check the To, Subject and text, edit anything, then click Copy or Open in Mail.

The draft is written from the meeting's notes by whatever writes your notes (Parlo Cloud, your own API key or the on-device model). The To field comes from the calendar invite when the meeting had one; otherwise add the addresses yourself. Parlo never sends anything: Open in Mail just starts a new message for you to send. With Parlo Cloud, only the notes, title, date and recipients' names go to Parlo's relay, never their email addresses.

1. Open the meeting in the Meetings window.
2. Click its title above the notes, type the new name and press Return (Esc cancels).

The new name shows in the list and is written into the meeting's notes file too.

1. Open Finder → Documents → Parlo Meetings.
2. Each meeting is its own folder containing the audio, a transcript, and clean notes.

Everything stays on your Mac. You can also open and manage meetings from Parlo's Meetings window.

1. Parlo Cloud (the recommended default, included with your plan) gives the best notes: a hosted model with Reasoning set to High out of the box.
2. On-device notes are fine for quick recall and keep everything on your Mac, but get shakier on longer meetings.
3. To switch, open Settings → Meetings and pick Parlo Cloud or another provider; Regenerate notes on any saved meeting to redo it with the new setting.
4. For a second opinion on one meeting, use Polish (Open in ChatGPT or Claude) from the Meetings window — the transcript is on your clipboard with a ready-made prompt.

Only the transcript text ever leaves the Mac, never the audio. The Meetings window shows which path wrote the notes on screen.

1. Open Settings → Meetings.
2. Switch “Use cloud generation for better notes” on and pick Parlo Cloud (included) as the provider; there is no key to enter. Test Connection confirms your license is accepted.
3. To go fully on-device, switch the toggle off. Existing notes are untouched; only new generations change.

Parlo Cloud is authenticated with the license Parlo already holds, so it works as soon as you're signed in with an active plan. The Meetings window's provenance line (“Notes by Parlo Cloud” / “Notes generated on-device”) has a Change link that opens this pane.

1. If your Mac went to sleep or lost Wi-Fi when the meeting ended, there's nothing to do since 0.1.38: Parlo waits until it's back online and finishes with Parlo Cloud. If it was offline for longer, Parlo writes on-device notes first and swaps in the Parlo Cloud version once you reconnect, as long as you haven't edited them.
2. Otherwise, read the banner under the Notes/Transcript picker: it names the reason (license needs a refresh, daily limit reached, transcript too long, nothing to summarize).
3. Fix the cause if there is one (wait for the daily reset, sign in again) and click Regenerate notes on that meeting.

A failed cloud run never loses a meeting: Parlo falls back to the on-device model and says so. The daily limit is 40 cloud generations per user.

1. Check System Settings → Sound → Input: Parlo records from whatever macOS has as the default input, so with EarPods or a headset plugged in, make sure the one you're speaking into is selected.
2. If you unplug or plug a microphone mid-recording, Parlo switches to the new default automatically; give it a second.
3. If the pill still stays flat and a notice says the mic delivered no audio, check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Parlo is on.

For a cleaner mic track, pick Voice Isolation in the menu bar's Mic Mode while Parlo is recording (macOS remembers it for Parlo). Parlo suggests this once during your first recording.

1. Open the meeting in Parlo's Meetings window.
2. Click the ⋯ button in the toolbar, choose Polish with AI, then Open in ChatGPT or Open in Claude.
3. The transcript is already on your clipboard — paste it into the prompt that opens and press enter.

ChatGPT opens in your browser; Claude opens in the Claude Mac app when it's installed. Only the transcript text is shared with the service you pick — never your audio.

1. Open Settings → Meetings and switch the toggle on.
2. Pick a provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, or a custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint), enter your API key, and save — saving runs a connection test automatically.
3. For a custom endpoint, double-check the Base URL and model field, then click Test Connection.
4. Generate notes again — from a new meeting, or with Regenerate Notes on the saved meeting.

Your API key is stored in the Mac Keychain. If a cloud run fails for any reason (bad key, unreachable endpoint, network error), Parlo falls back to on-device notes and tells you why — in the HUD after a meeting or as a banner in the Meetings window. Notes are never missing.

1. Open Settings → Meetings.
2. Choose Shared Folder (any folder you sync with iCloud Drive, a network share, etc.) or Google Drive (native — a real Google Doc or markdown, in My Drive or a Workspace Shared Drive).
3. Pick or connect the destination, then share it with your team once in that provider's own app.
4. In the Meetings window, click Export in the toolbar and choose Google Drive or Shared Folder; meetings already shared show a Shared label in the list. Turn on Auto-share in Settings → Meetings to publish every meeting as soon as its notes are ready.

Only notes, transcript, and metadata are ever shared — the audio recording never leaves your Mac either way.

1. Open Settings → Meetings, find Google Drive and click Connect. A browser window opens for Google sign-in.
2. Approve access, then use the picker that opens to choose a folder in My Drive or a Shared Drive.
3. If the browser window doesn't return you to Parlo, check that you didn't block the redirect and try Connect again.

Parlo only requests access to files it creates itself (Google's drive.file scope) — it can never see or list the rest of your Drive.

1. Make sure you're re-sharing the same meeting from the same Mac — Parlo tracks the Google Doc/file it already created per meeting and updates it in place.
2. If you changed the output format (Google Doc vs. markdown) in Settings, share again — this now correctly replaces the old file instead of leaving a stale one behind.