MimicScribe

Troubleshooting

Can’t find what you need here? Email support@mimicscribe.app — I typically reply within a day.

Where is the app? I don’t see it in the Dock.

MimicScribe is a menu bar app — it appears as a small icon in the top-right area of your screen, not in the Dock.

How do I re-grant a permission I denied?

Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, find the relevant permission (Microphone, System Audio Recording Only, or Accessibility), and toggle MimicScribe on. Accessibility takes effect immediately; for Microphone or System Audio Recording Only, you may need to quit and relaunch the app.

The model download failed. How do I retry?

A Retry button appears on the download card in the onboarding wizard. Click it to restart the download.

No audio is being captured.

  • Microphone: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone — ensure MimicScribe is enabled
  • System audio (for meetings): System Settings > Privacy & Security > System Audio Recording Only — must be enabled
  • Wrong device: check Settings > General > Microphone and make sure the correct input is selected

Words are missing from the transcript.

When audio is captured but parts of what was said don’t show up, the input level is usually too low. Quiet voices, sitting back from a laptop mic, an external USB mic with low default gain, or a recently-changed audio device can all push the level below where the app reliably detects speech.

Settings > General > Microphone level has a built-in check. Click Test, read the prompt sentence aloud, and the row reports whether your peak speech level lands in the recommended -25 to -20 dB band. If it falls below the band, Boost mic to recommended level raises the input gain via Core Audio and re-measures.

Some devices ignore software volume changes — USB mics with hardware knobs, AirPods, headsets with fixed gain. The check reports that explicitly and points to System Settings > Sound > Input or the device’s own control.

While a meeting is recording, the status bar at the top of the meeting overlay shows the input level as a small bar meter. The green segments should light up when you speak — most of them, not just the first one. Nothing lighting up means it’s too quiet; red on the right edge means clipping. If yours sits at one or two faint bars, run the calibration check above.

Worth re-running:

  • After switching to a new microphone, headset, or pair of AirPods.
  • After moving farther from a laptop mic — laptop on a stand, leaning back, working from across the room.
  • In a new environment with different background noise (home office to coffee shop, quiet room to a car).
  • After a macOS update, in case input device defaults reset.

If the level is in band and words are still missing, the issue is downstream of capture — check that the right input device is selected in Settings > General > Microphone, and that nothing is muted at the system level.

My dictation isn’t appearing at the cursor.

Check the following in order:

  1. Wrong input selected — the target app’s text field may not have focus. Click into the text field where you want text to appear before dictating.
  2. Accessibility permission — Insert Mode requires Accessibility access. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility and ensure MimicScribe is enabled. After updating MimicScribe, you may need to re-grant this permission.
  3. Recover from the status panel — every dictation is saved to your history. Click the MimicScribe icon in the menu bar, find the transcription in the list, and click Copy to grab it. Then paste it wherever you need it.
  4. Re-paste a transform result — double-tap the Transform hotkey quickly (start and stop within 2 seconds, without speaking) to re-paste the most recent transform result at the cursor.

Meeting mode shows no speaker labels.

Speaker identification requires both system audio and microphone input, and an Unlimited license for AI-powered speaker labels. Verify:

  • System Audio Recording Only permission is granted
  • Your video call app is producing audio
  • Your microphone is not muted at the system level

Free tier limits reached.

Daily limits reset each day. Current usage is shown in the menu bar panel. See the Free Tier page for details. Setting the dictation provider to None bypasses AI credits for raw transcription.

Does MimicScribe work on Intel Macs?

No. MimicScribe requires Apple Silicon (M1 or newer). The speech recognition model runs on the Neural Engine, which is only available on Apple Silicon.