Desktop App Issues
Fix install, update, meeting-detection, and stealth-mode problems.
Most desktop hiccups come down to one of a few things: a setting that is switched off, a feature that is Windows-only, or an update waiting politely for your meeting to finish. This page walks through the most common desktop problems and their fixes, grouped by topic.
Almost every setting below lives in Desktop Settings, a single screen with four tabs: General, Stealth Mode, Meeting detection, and Updates. These settings only appear inside the installed desktop app, not in a web browser.
Quick checks first
Before diving into a specific fix, confirm these basics. They resolve a surprising number of issues on their own.
- You're in the desktop app: Desktop-only settings appear only in the installed app, not a browser tab.
- Kalima is running: Closing the window hides Kalima to the tray on Windows/macOS, it keeps running there.
- The right toggle is on: Meeting detection, auto-start, and stealth are each opt-in switches in Desktop Settings.
- You're up to date: Check Desktop Settings, Updates for your current version before reporting a problem.
Install & launch
You opened the settings screen in a regular web browser instead of the installed Kalima desktop app. The General, Stealth Mode, Meeting detection, and Updates settings only exist inside the installed app. Open Kalima from your Start menu, Applications folder, or app launcher, then open Desktop Settings from there.
Windows uses a standard installer (you can choose the install folder), macOS comes as a disk image (.dmg), and Linux ships as an AppImage or a .deb package. Download the right one for your system from Kalima, then launch the app and sign in. See Installing the Desktop App for the full walkthrough.
The main window has a minimum size of 800 by 600 pixels and won't shrink below that. If you need to keep a video visible while working in a tiny window, use Picture-in-Picture instead, which detaches the video into a small floating window.
Sign-in & tray
Signing in with Google opens your normal system web browser, then returns you to the desktop app automatically once you authenticate. This needs a working default browser. If nothing happens, confirm your default browser opens normally, then try again, or sign in with your email and password directly in the app window instead. Once you're in, the session persists across app restarts.
That's expected on Windows and macOS: closing the window hides Kalima to the system tray (menu bar on macOS) so it keeps running and can still detect meetings. To fully exit, use Quit from the tray menu. On Linux, closing the last window quits the app.
Look in your system tray (Windows/Linux) or menu bar (macOS). Click the tray icon to bring the window back, or right-click it for a menu with Show Kalima, Start/Stop Transcription, the app version, and Quit. You can also press the global shortcut Ctrl+Shift+K (Cmd+Shift+K on Mac) to bring the window to the front.
Auto-launch is off by default. Open Desktop Settings, General, Startup and turn on Open at login. To launch hidden in the tray instead of showing the window, also enable Start minimized.
Meeting detection & auto-recording
Meeting detection appears with two intensities: a Meeting Assist prompt for medium- or high-confidence calls (when Show meeting assist is on), and fully automatic recording only for high-confidence calls (when Auto-start high-confidence calls is on). Detection runs locally and is best-effort, so it can occasionally miss or misjudge a call.
Run through these in order:
- Open Desktop Settings, Meeting detection and make sure both Enable meeting detection and Show meeting assist are on.
- Confirm the call's app isn't excluded, for example, check the Detect Microsoft Teams toggle under Supported apps.
- Keep Kalima running. It needs to be active (it stays in the tray when you close the window) to watch for calls.
- For browser-based calls (like Google Meet), use a supported browser.
- Detection rates its confidence; the assist only appears for medium- or high-confidence calls. A borderline call may stay below the threshold.
Still not working? Turn on Local diagnostics in the same tab, reproduce the issue, and share the log location with support so they can investigate.
Automatic, no-prompt recording only fires on high-confidence detection. Medium-confidence calls show the Meeting Assist panel instead so you can choose. Turn on Auto-start high-confidence calls in Desktop Settings, Meeting detection, and for medium-confidence calls just click Start meeting in the assist panel.
Common ones, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Slack Huddle, Discord, Skype, RingCentral, GoTo Meeting, BlueJeans, and Google Meet (in the browser), plus calls in several other apps. You can exclude Microsoft Teams from detection under Supported apps if you use it only for personal calls. See Meeting detection for the full picture.
Auto-stop when call ends is on by default, but it only applies to recordings that were started by meeting detection, not to recordings you started manually. It also waits for a couple of consecutive checks before stopping, so it doesn't cut off during a brief drop. If a manually-started recording is still running, stop it from the tray menu or with Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T).
Record in background is only available once Auto-start high-confidence calls is enabled. Turn on auto-start first in Desktop Settings, Meeting detection, then toggle Record in background.
Start minimized requires Open at login to be on. Turn on Open at login in Desktop Settings, General, Startup, then enable Start minimized.
Audio & screen capture
Your recording is capturing only your microphone, not the meeting audio playing on your computer. Start the recording with a capture mode that includes meeting/desktop audio (for example, mic plus meeting audio), and grant any screen/audio sharing permission your operating system asks for. On Windows you can pick the exact app to capture in the source picker. Full details are in Capturing audio & screen and System & meeting audio capture troubleshooting.
Isolating a single app's audio and native (browser-free) screen recording are Windows-only capabilities. On macOS and Linux, Kalima captures system-wide audio and uses your browser's screen/audio sharing for screen recording instead. If you need to capture one specific app's audio in isolation, use Windows.
On Windows, the source picker only lists apps and windows that are currently running. Make sure your target app is open, then use the Refresh button in the picker. Switch between the Windows and Screens tabs and use the preview thumbnails to confirm you've selected the right one.
Screen and video recordings are saved as local files in a recordings folder on your computer, they aren't uploaded to the cloud automatically. You can list them, open the folder, delete them, or play them back inside Kalima, and you can change the storage folder. If the app crashed mid-recording, it recovers partially-written recordings the next time you launch it.
Stealth mode
Stealth mode is off by default. Turn on Stealth mode in Desktop Settings, Stealth Mode. With it on, screen shares, screen recordings, and screenshots show a black rectangle where Kalima would be, so your live transcript stays private to you. Hiding from screen shares is most reliable on Windows, and behavior in tools outside the common meeting and screenshot apps may vary.
That black rectangle is exactly how stealth mode works: apps like Zoom, Teams, Meet, and Discord render a black area where the protected Kalima window sits, rather than showing its contents. Other participants can't see your transcript or notes, only the placeholder. This is the intended behavior, not a bug. Learn more in Privacy & stealth mode.
Updates
The desktop app checks for new signed releases automatically (about every few hours) and can download them in the background. The Updates tab shows your current version, your release channel (stable or beta), the available version, and download progress.
This is intentional. Kalima defers (postpones) updates while a meeting is active so it never interrupts a live recording. Finish or stop the meeting, then click Download update or Restart to update again in Desktop Settings, Updates.
Automatic updates aren't available for your current build or configuration, this is controlled by Kalima. If you can't update from inside the app, download the latest version from Kalima's website and reinstall over your existing installation.
Open Desktop Settings, Updates and read the status: Current version, Release channel, and Available version. Click Check for updates to look now, Download update if one is available, and Restart to update to install it. Installing always requires restarting the app.
Keyboard shortcuts
Kalima's global shortcuts are Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T (start/stop transcription), Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+M (mute/unmute mic), and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+K (show the Kalima window). If one stops working, another application has probably already claimed the same key combination. Close or reconfigure the conflicting app's shortcut, then restart Kalima so it can register the combination. These specific combinations are fixed in the app.
Connection & sleep
If Kalima briefly can't reach its service, for example during a short Wi-Fi drop or after your laptop wakes from sleep, it shows an offline screen and reconnects automatically when it can, helping recordings recover rather than silently fail. Usually no action is needed; wait for the reconnection or retry once your network is back. Note that very long outages may still affect a recording, since recovery is best-effort. For more on how recordings survive interruptions, see Reliability & recovery.
Still stuck?
If a problem persists after these steps, our team is happy to help, and turning on Local diagnostics before reproducing a meeting-detection issue gives support something concrete to look at.