Setting up WrapScribe.

The setup window

The first time you open WrapScribe it puts a small window on screen and stays there until you finish it. The window is 520 points wide, it has a close button but no resize handle, and it holds one step at a time.

Along the bottom are six dots, one per step, with the current one in blue. Back appears from the second step onwards; Continue sits on the right and is the default button, so Return moves you along. On the last step Continue is replaced by Get Started, and pressing it is what ends setup.

Two steps can refuse to let you past. Activation is a hard gate — Continue stays disabled until this Mac is activated — and so is the permissions step, with one documented exception described under Continue anyway. Everything else is a choice you can change later in Settings.

Setup is short on purpose. It asks for two permissions and nothing else: no trial to start, no sample dictation to perform, no dictionary to fill in. Apple Intelligence, launch-at-login and the live microphone test all live in Settings and the Dashboard instead, so the first launch does not turn into a form.

Step 1 — Welcome to WrapScribe

The app icon, the line “Welcome to WrapScribe”, and four rows saying what the app does. Nothing on this screen needs an answer; read it and press Continue.

• Dictate anywhere — “Hold your shortcut, speak, and the words land at your cursor.”
• Record meetings Pro — “It notices a call, asks first, and writes speaker-labelled notes.” Meeting recording is part of Pro and Max; on Basic the app never offers it.
• Rewrite by voice — “Say “Hey WrapScribe, polish that” — or give any transform a hotkey.”
• Nothing is lost — “Cancel by mistake and the audio is still there, in your Dashboard.”

Under the four rows, one small line closes the screen: “All on-device. Instant. Private.” It is a description of how the app works rather than a setting — speech recognition, cleanup and meeting notes all run on your Mac, and the pages under Features say where each of them happens.

Step 2 — Activate WrapScribe

One field, two kinds of credential. The heading is “Activate WrapScribe” and the line under it reads: “Paste the licence key from your account. Your dictations stay on this Mac — the account carries daily counts and preferences, nothing you said.”

Continue is disabled on this step until the Mac is activated. It is the same form the app shows in its lock window if a licence is ever revoked, so the two paths cannot drift apart.

Your licence key

A licence key looks like WS-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX, which is also the field's placeholder. Paste it and press Activate (Return does the same). The field takes up to three lines, because three AppSumo codes stack into a Max licence and are pasted one per line; a key only ever needs one.

Under the field is the invitation to paste a code instead. If you type something long enough to be a whole credential and it is neither shape, that line changes to name both: “That doesn't look like a licence key or an AppSumo code yet. Keys look like WS-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX; codes look like WRAP-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX.” Anything the server refuses appears in red under the form — see The licence key isn't accepted.

Below the button, “Get a licence key” opens wrapscribe.com. Once the key is accepted the step turns into a green seal and the word “Activated”, with the email the licence belongs to underneath.

AppSumo codes

An AppSumo code goes in the same field — the app recognises the shape and rearranges itself around it. Codes look like WRAP-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX, and if you bought more than one, paste them all, one per line: one code is Basic, two is Pro, three is Max.

Because a code buys a licence rather than opening one, a second field appears above the button asking “Where should we send your licence key?” — AppSumo does not pass on buyer addresses, so this is the only place the app can capture one. The button changes to “Redeem & Activate”.

After redemption the screen shows the key those codes just bought under the heading “Your licence key”, with a Copy button and the line “Emailed to ‹your address›. Keep it for your other Macs.” If the mail does not arrive, “Send again” sits under it and reports back either “Sent” or the reason it could not.

Why there is no Skip

There is no trial, no limited mode and no way past this step: setup cannot proceed until this Mac is activated. WrapScribe is a one-time purchase in three sizes — Basic covers 1 Mac, Pro up to 3 Macs, Max every Mac you own — and the pricing section has the current numbers. If you have already paid, your key is in the email from your purchase and in your account.

Step 3 — Grant Permissions

The heading is “Grant Permissions” and the sentence under it is the whole story: “WrapScribe needs two permissions: your microphone to hear you, and accessibility to type text at your cursor.” Two rows follow, one per permission, each showing either a button or a green “Granted”. Continue is disabled until both say Granted.

Nothing else is asked for here. Input Monitoring is not requested — macOS grants it alongside Accessibility for the kind of event tap WrapScribe installs — and screen recording is never requested at all.

Microphone

“Grant Access” raises the standard macOS microphone prompt, the one carrying the app's own reason for asking. Allow it and the row flips to a green tick and “Granted” straight away. Without it there is nothing to transcribe, so this is the one permission the app genuinely cannot work without.

Accessibility

“Open Settings” takes you to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, where you switch WrapScribe on. You do not have to come back and press anything: the wizard re-checks once a second while it is open, so the row turns green by itself a moment after you flip the switch.

Accessibility is what lets WrapScribe put text where your cursor is. Without it a finished dictation cannot be pasted, so it is offered to you on a card to copy instead — the fallback is described in the Copy card.

Continue anyway

Once the microphone is granted but Accessibility is not, a quiet “Continue anyway” appears beside Continue. It exists because macOS ties an Accessibility grant to one exact copy of an app, and that grant can end up pinned to a previous build — so the app reads “not granted” for a permission that in fact works.

Taking it finishes setup without Accessibility. Dictation still records and still transcribes; it just cannot type into another app until the permission is real. The app keeps asking, and Settings → Permissions has the row and the button to fix it whenever you are ready.

Step 4 — Pick Your Shortcut

The heading is “Pick Your Shortcut”, and the body copy explains the whole screen: “Click a shortcut to record any key. Hold one to talk, or tap one to toggle dictation — set either or both. Paste again is optional. You can always change them later in Settings.”

Three rows follow. Each has a name and a one-line description on the left, and on the right the key it is bound to, a pencil that starts recording a new one, and a … menu holding the three presets — Fn 🌐, Right Option ⌥ and F5 — plus Disable.

• Push to talk — “Hold to say something short”. Bound to the Fn (🌐) key out of the box, so its chip reads Fn.
• Hands-free mode — “Dictate hands-free — press to start and stop”. Bound to ⌘ held with Fn, so its chip reads Cmd ⌘ + Fn.
• Paste again — “Re-insert your last dictation at the cursor”. Ships unbound, showing the dashed Add shortcut placeholder; this row is where most people find out it exists.

Clicking a chip (or its pencil) starts recording: the row lights up and asks you to “Press the shortcut you want to use.”, then “Press Esc or Return to save.” once it has one. Escape cancels dictation and is set separately, in Settings → Shortcuts & Input, where the same three rows appear with a fourth for Cancel.

If Fn opens the Emoji picker

Whenever one of your shortcuts uses the Fn key, an orange line appears under the rows: “If Fn opens the Emoji picker, set the Globe key to “Do Nothing”.”, with an “Open Keyboard Settings” button beside it.

This is a macOS setting, not a WrapScribe one. If “Press 🌐 to” is set to show Emoji & Symbols, macOS consumes the key before any app sees it, and no event tap can override that. Set it to Do Nothing and Fn is yours. Settings has a one-click version of the same fix — see Fn opens the Emoji picker instead of recording.

Step 5 — Choose Your Overlay

The heading is “Choose Your Overlay” and the line under it reads “Pick how WrapScribe appears while you dictate. You can change this anytime in Settings.” Two rows follow, each with a live miniature of the thing it describes:

• Minimalist menu-bar band — “A slim band beside the notch showing just the waveform. Never covers your app's toolbar.”
• Floating pill — “A capsule you can anchor anywhere on screen. Live waveform; discard and finish appear on hover.” This is the default, and the row is already selected when you arrive.

Picking a row applies it immediately, so you can switch back and forth and watch the thumbnails. There is deliberately no “no overlay” row here: recording with nothing on screen is a switch rather than a style, and it lives in Settings → Overlay & Sound along with the pill's finish, transparency and nine anchor positions.

Step 6 — You're All Set!

A green tick, the line “You're All Set!”, and one paragraph: “WrapScribe lives in your menu bar. Open the Dashboard anytime to see your history, dictionary, snippets, and transforms.” The button in the footer now reads Get Started, and pressing it ends setup.

The lines to remember

Under that paragraph is a short list built from the shortcuts you just chose — the app fills in your own keys, so the rows differ from Mac to Mac:

• “Hold ‹your push-to-talk key› to record” — with the default that reads Hold Fn to record.
• “Tap ‹your hands-free shortcut› to start and stop” — with the default, Tap Cmd ⌘ + Fn to start and stop.
• “Press ‹key› to re-insert your last dictation” — only if you gave Paste again a shortcut.
• “Text is typed at your cursor — or offered to copy if no field is focused” — always shown, because it is the one rule that is not yours to set.

That last line is the whole of how a dictation ends. Where it lands, and what happens when it cannot, is in Features.

After setup

Pressing Get Started does four things at once: the wizard closes, your shortcuts start listening, the app begins checking for updates on its own hourly schedule, and the Dashboard opens. Two alerts can follow, both of them one-time and both described below.

The Dashboard opens

You land in the Dashboard rather than back on the desktop, so there is somewhere to look. It is a 960 × 620 window with a sidebar — Dictation, Dictionary, Snippets, Meetings, Transforms, Styles — and a Settings row at the foot of that sidebar, which is also what ⌘, opens. Every tab is covered in The Dashboard.

Closing the Dashboard does not quit the app. WrapScribe carries on from the menu bar; “Open WrapScribe…” brings the window back, and so does opening the app again from Applications or Spotlight.

Download Parakeet

Setup leaves you on the built-in Apple model, so your first dictation works with nothing to download. The one change worth making straight away is in Settings → Language & Model: press “Download & Use” on the row marked “Fastest” — Parakeet TDT v3, a 483 MB download. It keeps up while you talk, shows a live preview of your words, and is the recommended model for every use case — 25 European languages including English; once it is on disk, every dictation runs offline.

If you dictate in a language it does not cover — Hindi, Tamil or Arabic, say — pick “Most accurate” (Whisper Large v3 Turbo) or “Balanced” (Whisper Small) instead; the Whisper models cover around 99 languages.

“Turn on Apple Intelligence for Smart Cleanup”

Cleanup runs in Smart mode by default, and Smart mode uses Apple's on-device language model. If Apple Intelligence is switched off on your Mac, WrapScribe says so once, in a standard macOS alert:

“Smart Cleanup runs Apple's language model entirely on your Mac. You can turn it on now, or use WrapScribe's instant Basic Cleanup instead.” Three buttons: Open Settings takes you to Apple Intelligence & Siri in System Settings; Use Basic switches cleanup to Basic there and then; Not Now leaves everything as it is. Whichever you pick, the alert has been shown and does not come back.

Basic cleanup is not a downgrade in privacy — it is instant, local string tidying rather than a model — and you can change your mind any time in Settings → Voice & Cleanup.

“WrapScribe updated and macOS reset its Accessibility permission”

This one appears at the first launch after an update, and only if the permission really did go. macOS grants Accessibility to one exact copy of an app, so replacing WrapScribe on disk can revoke it — which from the outside looks exactly like the update having broken dictation. The alert says why:

“macOS grants Accessibility to one exact copy of an app, so replacing WrapScribe on disk revokes it. Until you turn it back on, dictation shortcuts won't fire and finished dictations land in a Copy card instead of pasting at your cursor.” Re-grant Accessibility opens the right pane in System Settings; Later dismisses it.

If the permission survived the update, the alert never appears. See Accessibility stopped working after an update for the case where re-granting alone does not take.

Running setup again

You can replay the wizard whenever you like. In the menu bar the row is “Re-run Setup…”; in Settings → General it is a row called “Set up again” with the same “Re-run Setup…” button, described there as: “Replays the welcome walkthrough — permissions, overlay choice, shortcuts. Your settings and your data are untouched.”

It is safe to press and safe to back out of. While the wizard is open your hotkeys are paused so a shortcut you are recording cannot start a dictation; if you close the window without finishing, everything — including the hotkeys — is put back exactly as it was. Only one wizard opens at a time.

The menu itself is the app's front door: a header line showing what it is doing (“WrapScribe — Ready” when it is idle), then Start Dictating, Record a Meeting on Pro and Max, Open WrapScribe…, Settings…, Re-run Setup… and Quit. It is documented row by row in the menu bar.

If something goes wrong

Four things account for nearly every stuck first launch. Each one has a fix inside the app; none of them needs support, though support is there if they do not work.

Accessibility stopped working after an update

Symptoms: your shortcut does nothing, or dictations finish and then offer themselves on a card instead of typing. macOS has tied the grant to the previous copy of the app and the switch, though it looks on, no longer means anything.

The wizard says the fix outright: “Stuck after an update? In System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, remove WrapScribe with the − button, then add it back.” Removing and re-adding forces macOS to grant the permission to the copy you are actually running. Settings → Permissions has Re-grant and Re-check buttons for the same job when the app has spotted the problem itself.

Fn opens the Emoji picker instead of recording

macOS is set to open Emoji & Symbols when you press 🌐, and it takes the key before WrapScribe can see it. Settings → Shortcuts & Input shows a banner headed “The Fn (🌐) key opens the emoji picker” whenever one of your shortcuts uses Fn, with two buttons: “Fix the Globe key” sets “Press 🌐 to” to Do Nothing for you, and “Open Keyboard Settings” takes you there to do it yourself.

The change needs a log out and back in (or a restart) before it takes effect — the banner says so once you have pressed the button. If you would rather keep 🌐 for emoji, rebind push-to-talk to Right Option ⌥ or F5 from the row's … menu.

There's no menu bar icon

Three different things look identical here, and only one of them is a WrapScribe setting.

• You hid it. Settings → General has “Hide the menu bar icon”, which removes the icon completely, including while recording. Your shortcuts keep working. To bring it back, open WrapScribe from Applications or Spotlight — that opens the Dashboard — and turn the switch off.
• macOS switched it off. If it has, Settings says so: “macOS has switched the WrapScribe icon off — from System Settings → Menu Bar, or a ⌘-drag off the bar.” Press “Open Menu Bar Settings”, then, under “Allow in the menu bar”, switch WrapScribe back on — the icon returns immediately.
• Something is hiding it. Otherwise Settings offers “Can't see the icon?” and a Locate button, which widens the icon and spells out WrapScribe for a few seconds so it stands out in a crowded bar. If it still does not appear: menu-bar managers like Ice and Bartender file newly installed icons away by default, and on a MacBook with a notch a full menu bar simply stops drawing the overflow.

Hiding the icon is a per-Mac setting, and the recovery steps live in Settings → General.

The licence key isn't accepted

Errors appear in red under the activation form, and each says what to do next. “That licence key isn't valid.” means the key itself was not recognised — check it against your purchase email. The other common one is the plan limit: “This licence is already active on 3 Macs. Sign out on one of them first.” (or, on Basic, “already active on another Mac”).

Basic covers 1 Mac, Pro up to 3 Macs and Max every Mac you own. There is no seat-management screen in the app: you free a Mac either by signing out on that Mac — Settings → Account → Sign Out — or, if it is gone or wiped, by emailing support@wrapscribe.com and asking us to release it.

AppSumo codes have their own answers: a code already redeemed under a different email, a refunded code, or a fourth code on an account that already stacks three all say so in one sentence. Your plan and the Mac you are on are shown in Settings → Account.