Find your fix by symptom.

Symptom 1 · Hotkey completely unresponsive

The most common issue. 99% of the time, one of three permissions isn't fully granted.

Diagnostic order

1. Is the VoiceInput icon in the menu bar? No → app isn't running, open /Applications/VoiceInput.app
2. System Settings → Privacy & Security, check in order:
   • Input Monitoring (most often forgotten) — find VoiceInput → toggle on
   • Microphone — same
   • Accessibility — same
3. All three on but still unresponsive → remove VoiceInput from Input Monitoring and re-add (- then +) — common macOS bug
4. Still broken → see "Permission identity mismatch" below

Full guide: Permissions.

Symptom 2 · Hotkey triggers another app

Means another app stole the combo. See Shortcuts docs "Conflicts" section — three steps to find the conflict source + switch to a non-conflicting combo.

Symptom 3 · Audio captured but text not inserted

Three common causes:

3a · Accessibility permission silently broke

Text insertion depends on Accessibility. Check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.

3b · You switched windows

You moved to a different app while speaking, so when recognition completes the cursor isn't in the original input field — text inserts at current cursor. VoiceInput v0.10+ added "target window lock" to prevent this, but a few rare apps (full-screen games) escape it.

3c · App rejects external input

Some apps (protected input fields like banking app passwords, certain VM full-screen windows) reject synthetic keyboard events. VoiceInput auto-falls back to clipboard + toast "Press ⌘V to paste".

Symptom 4 · No text appears after speaking

Recognition itself failed. Possible causes:

• No mic input: check system input device (System Settings → Sound → Input)
• Recording too short: under 0.5s is treated as accidental key press, not recognized (anti-ghost-press)
• Cloud engine network error: try switching to local engine — if it works, it's a cloud-side issue
• Local engine model not downloaded: picked "local streaming" but model is missing → Settings → Engine → re-download

Symptom 5 · Bought Pro but sidebar still shows "Not configured"

License didn't bind to the current account. Check:

1. Settings → Account — signed in with the purchase email? Not? → sign in with that email
2. At My Account on web view license status — if status is active but client doesn't recognize it, quit and relaunch the app (license re-pulls)
3. If web also shows no license → email [email protected] with purchase email, we'll look up

See License docs.

Symptom 6 · AI Tidy keeps timing out

• Occasional timeout: network blip or cloud congestion. Since v0.61, auto-retries once. If two consecutive timeouts, it's a real network issue — switch to wired Wi-Fi, disable proxies.
• Persistent timeout: your IP may be rate-limited. Consider BYOK mode (your own OpenAI / Kimi API key) — calls bypass our proxy.
• Recording too long: 90s+ recordings have noticeably higher timeout rate. Chunk long inputs.

Symptom 7 · Launch crash

Rare, but a few documented root causes:

7a · macOS 26 (developer preview) compat

macOS 26 changed some SwiftUI / NSPanel API behavior. VoiceInput v0.32+ fixed the main issues — make sure your version is ≥ v0.32.0. Get latest from Download.

7b · Database corruption

Very rare. Manual backup + reset:

1. Quit VoiceInput
2. Finder → ⌘+⇧+G → enter ~/Library/Application Support/VoiceInput/
3. Move the entire folder to Desktop as backup (contains all history and settings)
4. Restart VoiceInput — it'll rebuild an empty database
5. If stable, the old database had issues; contact us — we can attempt to recover history

7c · Input method / input helper conflict

Rarely, Sogou Input Method, QuickCursor, etc. conflict with VoiceInput's global hotkey tap and crash. Temporarily quit those apps to test — if they're the culprit, contact those tools' authors or switch to non-conflicting alternatives.

Permission identity mismatch (ultimate fix)

All three permissions granted but still doesn't work — usually macOS uses certificate fingerprints to identify authorization, and if you've installed dev / older builds, the auth may attach to the wrong build.

1. System Settings → Privacy & Security → remove VoiceInput from all three permission lists
2. Quit VoiceInput (menu bar → Quit, or ⌘+Q)
3. Reopen /Applications/VoiceInput.app
4. Press hotkey once — macOS will re-prompt all three permissions; grant in order

Stopped working after upgrade

Major macOS upgrades (e.g. 14 → 15) often invalidate Input Monitoring authorization. Same fix as "Permission identity mismatch" — remove VoiceInput from Input Monitoring and re-add.

View logs (advanced)

If none of the above helps, attaching logs speeds up diagnosis:

Still stuck?

Send the following to [email protected]:

1. Specific symptom (screen recording is best)
2. VoiceInput version (menu bar → About / Settings)
3. macOS version (About this Mac)
4. Which step in the above list still fails

Reply within 24 hours, guaranteed.