Grant permissions

Quendian requires two macOS permissions before it can record. macOS will prompt for both on first use, but you can also grant them manually in System Settings.

Microphone

Why it’s needed: Quendian captures your voice (and any audio playing through your Mac) to produce transcripts.

To grant manually:

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone
2. Find Quendian in the list and enable the toggle

Screen recording

Why it’s needed: macOS routes system audio — audio from other apps, meetings, videos — through the screen recording API. Quendian uses this to capture what’s playing on your Mac alongside your microphone.

Note

Quendian never captures screen pixels or video. The Screen Recording permission is solely for system audio. macOS bundles system-audio access into this permission category.

To grant manually:

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen Recording
2. Find Quendian in the list and enable the toggle

After granting permissions

If Quendian was already open when you granted permissions, quit and reopen the app for the changes to take effect.

Next step

Set up a transcription provider →