Getting Started
macOS Permissions for Pluely: Mic, Screen & Accessibility
Pluely v1 asks macOS for three permissions: Microphone, Screen Recording, and Accessibility. Each one unlocks a specific part of the app, and macOS enforces them strictly — if a permission is off, the related feature fails quietly rather than crashing, which can be confusing the first time. This page explains exactly what each permission does, where to find it, and what it looks like when it's missing.
All three live in the same place: System Settings → Privacy & Security, then the specific category on the right-hand list.
Microphone
What it's for: Microphone access lets Pluely hear you. It's required for:
- Listen mode — transcribing your side of a live conversation.
- Push-to-talk — any feature where you hold a key and speak to Pluely.
Where to grant it: Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone. Find Pluely in the list and toggle the switch on. If Pluely doesn't appear yet, try starting Listen mode once first — macOS adds an app to this list the first time it actually requests the microphone, then you can go flip the toggle.
Symptom if missing: Listen mode starts, the waveform never moves for "You," and your side of the conversation never appears in the transcript even though the other side does. Push-to-talk will feel completely dead — holding the key does nothing.
Screen Recording
What it's for: This one surprises people because it covers two unrelated things:
- Screenshots — attaching a capture of your screen to a question in Ask mode.
- System audio capture — hearing the other side of a call in Listen mode. macOS treats "listening to what your speakers are playing" as a screen-recording-adjacent capability, so there's no separate "system audio" toggle — Screen Recording covers it.
Where to grant it: Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording. Find Pluely and toggle it on. macOS will usually prompt automatically the first time you try to take a screenshot or start Listen mode, and you can grant it right from that prompt instead of digging into Settings.
Symptom if missing:
- Screenshot capture (full screen or region select) fails, returns a blank/black image, or the capture control simply doesn't do anything.
- In Listen mode, only your own voice ("You") transcribes — the other participant's audio never appears, because Pluely can't tap system audio without this permission.
Accessibility
What it's for: Accessibility access lets Pluely register global keyboard shortcuts that work no matter which app is focused, and lets the overlay behave correctly as an always-on-top window (for example, click-through behavior and window positioning).
Where to grant it: Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. Find Pluely in the list and toggle it on. If it's not listed, use the "+" button underneath the list to add it manually — locate Pluely in your Applications folder.
Symptom if missing: Your global toggle shortcut (the keypress that summons or hides the overlay) does nothing while another app is in the foreground. The overlay might still work if Pluely itself is the focused window, which makes this permission easy to miss until you try to summon Pluely over your code editor or a meeting app.
Quit and reopen after granting
macOS doesn't always apply a new permission to an already-running app — this is especially true for Screen Recording. If you grant a permission and the feature still doesn't work:
- Fully quit Pluely (Cmd+Q, or Pluely menu → Quit — closing the overlay window alone is not enough).
- Reopen Pluely from Applications or Spotlight.
- Try the feature again.
This single step resolves the majority of "I granted it but it's still not working" reports.
Checking what's currently granted
You can always audit all three permissions at once from System Settings → Privacy & Security, scrolling through Microphone, Screen Recording, and Accessibility in turn. Each list shows every app that has ever requested that permission, with a toggle next to it — Pluely should show as on in all three once fully set up.
Related
Last updated 2026-07-10 · pluely.com