The guide

Everything you need to get going with Clabrate

Hold a key, talk, and watch finished text land at your cursor — in any app, on your Mac, private by default. Start with the basics, then dip into whatever you need.

Start here › Troubleshooting

Getting started

Install Clabrate, grant permissions, and dictate for the first time.

What is Clabrate?
The mental model in one line — hold a key, talk, and finished text appears at your cursor. On your Mac, private by default.
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Install & permissions
Download the app, check the system requirements, and grant the macOS permissions Clabrate needs to listen and type for you.
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Your first dictation
A five-minute happy path — open an app, hold the key, speak a sentence, and watch Clabrate type it for you.
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The menu bar & HUD
Clabrate's two on-screen surfaces — the menu-bar ✨ control and the floating HUD that shows what it's doing.
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Dictation

The hold-to-talk key, shortcuts, vocabulary, and your microphone.

Dictation basics
The hold-to-talk key, tap-to-toggle vs. hold, and the two transcription modes — Final and Hybrid.
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Customizing shortcuts
Rebind dictate, assistant, and transform; use bare-modifier keys; and cancel anything with Esc.
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Words & vocabulary
Teach Clabrate the spellings, names, and replacements it should always get right.
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Microphone & audio
Pick the right input device, set yourself up for accurate transcription, and quiet your music while you talk.
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AI enhancement

Turn raw speech into clean, styled text — and rewrite text in place.

AI enhancement
Turn raw speech into clean, styled text. Raw is the default — flip on enhancement and pick a preset from the menu-bar ✨ control.
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Text transforms
Select text anywhere, press the transform key, and have AI rewrite it in place — with an optional one-time spoken style.
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Assistant

Ask questions by voice, attach context, and talk back and forth.

Using the assistant
Ask questions by voice, attach a screenshot, clipboard, or selection for context, and pick up recent conversations.
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Overlay & boards

A transparent canvas over your desktop that holds notes, terminals, and web pages.

The boards overlay
A transparent canvas over your whole desktop — press ⌘⇧O for a layer that holds notes, terminals, and web pages while the apps underneath keep working.
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Sticky pads
Scratch notes that float over your desktop — type or dictate into them, render them as Markdown with ⌘⇧M, and paste images straight in.
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Terminal & browser panes
Put a real login shell or a live web page on the boards overlay — including why Escape pauses when a password field is focused.
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Arranging panes
Tidy an overlay board by hand, or say where things should go — halves, thirds, quadrants, grids and saved layouts, all by voice.
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Models & privacy

Local vs cloud models, and exactly what stays on your Mac.

Models & providers
Choose where the AI runs — fully on-device, or a cloud provider — and set up model profiles to switch between them.
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Privacy & your data
What stays on your Mac, the few things that leave, and where your history lives. Clabrate is private by default.
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Settings & help

A tour of Settings, your history, and fixes for common snags.

Settings tour
A quick walk through Clabrate's settings groups, so you know where everything lives.
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History & insights
Your dictation and assistant history is stored locally — toggle it, clear it — and the Home page turns it into private metrics.
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Spot, your desktop companion
The little creature who lives in your menu bar, roams your screen, and points at things when Clabrate needs to show you something.
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Troubleshooting
Symptom → fix for the most common snags — text not typing, mic not heard, a shortcut that won't fire, a missing model, or Gemini unavailable.
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FAQ
Quick answers to the questions people ask most — privacy, offline use, supported apps, cost, and hardware.
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Need a hand?

Stuck on something the guide doesn't cover? Email support@clabrate.com or report an issue. Clabrate is made by one person, and real questions shape what gets built next.