Troubleshoot Problems with Kalima Desktop App

You opened Settings in a regular web browser instead of the installed Kalima desktop app. The Desktop app group (Meetings, Notifications, Shortcuts, Privacy, and Updates & about) only exists inside the installed app. Open Kalima from your Start menu, Applications folder, or app launcher, then open 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.

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.

A fresh install starts Kalima at login, hidden in the tray. If you or an older version switched that off, open Settings › General › Startup and turn on Open at login. To launch hidden in the tray instead of showing the window, also turn on Start hidden.

Run through these in order:

• Open Settings › Meetings and make sure Enable meeting detection is on and Default behavior is set to Ask me first.
• Confirm the call's app is switched on 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 calls in the browser (like Google Meet), install the Kalima extension in Chrome, Edge, or Brave, and check that Settings › Meetings shows Extension connected.
• Detection rates its confidence; the assist only appears for medium- or high-confidence calls. A borderline call may stay below the threshold. Check now shows whether Kalima sees a meeting at this moment.

Still not working? Turn on Local diagnostics under Settings › Privacy, reproduce the issue, and share the log location with support so they can investigate.

Automatic, no-prompt recording only fires on high-confidence detection, and only when Default behavior is set to Start automatically in Settings › Meetings. If you'd rather catch every likely meeting, use Ask me first and click Start recording in the assist panel.

The Microsoft Teams desktop app on its own. With the Kalima browser extension, also Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Jitsi Meet, and Whereby in Chrome, Edge, or Brave. Kalima does not detect the Zoom and Webex desktop apps. You can switch each app off under Supported apps. See Meeting detection for the full picture.

Google Meet, Jitsi Meet, and Whereby run in a browser tab, as do Zoom and Webex in the browser, and nothing on your computer can tell which tab a call is in. Click Get the extension in Settings › Meetings (or open the Kalima extension in the Chrome Web Store), add it to Chrome, Edge, or Brave, and keep the desktop app running. The row then shows Extension connected and the apps become Available.

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 with End recording in the recording widget, from the tray menu, or with Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T).

Record in background is only available when Default behavior is set to Start automatically. Change that first in Settings › Meetings, then turn on Record in background.

Start hidden requires Open at login to be on. Turn on Open at login in Settings › General › Startup, then turn on Start hidden.

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.

Privacy mode is off by default. Turn on Privacy mode in Settings › Privacy › Screen sharing. 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 privacy 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 Mode.

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 Settings › Updates & about.

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 Settings › Updates & about 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.

Kalima's default global shortcuts are Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+T (start/stop transcription), Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+M (mute/unmute mic), Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+K (show the Kalima window), and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+B (capture a moment, only while a recording runs). If one stops working, another application has probably already claimed the same key combination. Open Settings › Shortcuts: a conflict badge shows which one. Record a different combination there, or close or reconfigure the conflicting app.

When the desktop app can't load Kalima, it shows where the connection drops: a path from This computer to Internet to Kalima, with the broken link marked.

• Your computer is offline: there is no internet connection. Check Wi-Fi or the network cable, and if you use a VPN or company proxy, disconnect it briefly and try again.
• Kalima isn't responding right now: your computer is online, but Kalima's servers can't be reached. You don't need to change any settings. The screen links the Kalima status page and a support email.

Kalima tries again on its own (a bar counts down to the next attempt) and loads as soon as the connection is back. Click Try again to check right away.

If Kalima briefly can't reach its service, for example during a short Wi-Fi drop or after your laptop wakes from sleep, it 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.