Gotchas, and how to reach us.

Before you write in

Nothing is recorded until you start a session

Cyrano is on demand, not always-on. There is no wake word and no background listening. If you can’t find a transcript of something, the most likely reason is that no session was running at the time.

Capturing what’s playing on your Mac needs Screen Recording permission

macOS files system audio under the Screen Recording permission, so that is what it asks for. Cyrano uses it to hear a call or a video playing on your Mac. It does not record, capture, or read your screen.

Dictation on the App Store version lands on your clipboard

The Mac App Store build copies dictated text ready to paste rather than typing it into whatever app is in front of you. Typing into another app needs the Accessibility permission, which that version deliberately ships without. The direct download from our site does insert at the cursor.

An assistant on your Mac connects locally; one in a browser does not

Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex and most other assistants that run on your Mac connect over a loopback connection that never leaves the machine. Nothing reaches our server on that route, and it works on every plan. Claude on the web or your phone, and ChatGPT, cannot run Cyrano’s local helper, so they use a separate remote connection you pair with a one-time code.

Sessions expire unless you keep them

Retention is a setting, and the default is deliberately short. If a session vanished, check Settings for your retention choice. You can expire a session immediately, keep it 24 hours, or pin it so it stays.

Pro and Pro+ differ in where the thinking happens, not what you get

Pro runs the smart layer on your own device with a local model, one time purchase, nothing leaving the machine. Pro+ runs the same copilot on our server for the fastest and highest quality results, as a subscription. Transcript text transits our server while a Pro+ session is live, and is never logged.

Restoring a purchase on a new device

Use Restore Purchases on the plan screen. For Pro+ there is a second step that usually happens by itself: your device has to swap the App Store receipt for an access token, because that token lives in your device’s keychain and does not travel with a backup. If the copilot stays locked after restoring, the plan screen offers a retry.

Recording other people is your call to make

If you are in a conversation with someone else, Cyrano transcribes their side too. Recording laws vary, and many places require everyone in a recorded conversation to agree to it. Getting that permission is your responsibility, not the app’s.

iOS cannot hear phone calls

Apple blocks apps from accessing call audio, for every app, with no exception available to us. Cyrano pauses when a call starts and offers to capture a recap once it ends.