Common Issues

Solutions to the most frequently encountered problems with Murmur. If your issue isn't listed here, reach out at hello@murmur.you.

Hotkey doesn't work

Symptoms: Pressing your dictation shortcut does nothing.

Solutions:

• Make sure Input Monitoring is enabled: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Input Monitoring. Look for Murmur in the list and ensure it's toggled on. Without it, global hotkeys fail silently — telltale sign: the shortcut works while the Murmur window is frontmost but nowhere else.
• If Murmur doesn't appear in the list, click the + button and select Murmur from your Applications folder.
• Murmur warns when its own shortcuts conflict with each other (dictation vs. command vs. notes), but it cannot see shortcuts claimed by other apps. If a combination seems dead, another app may have registered it — try a different one.
• Try quitting and relaunching Murmur. Some permission changes require a restart.

Recording starts when I type special characters

Symptoms: With Right Option (R⌥) as your hotkey, typing accented or international characters (umlauts, ñ, €, ₹) or pressing ⌥+arrow starts a recording.

Solutions:

• Any right-Option press triggers the hotkey, including combos. Type international characters with the left Option key instead — position-awareness means left Option never triggers.
• Alternatively, switch to a key-plus-modifier shortcut like ⌘⇧D, which only fires on the exact combination.

Recording won't stop

Symptoms: A push-to-talk recording keeps running after you released the key.

Solutions:

• One clean tap of your hotkey stops it, as does pressing Escape.
• This can happen if both Option keys were held together and released in a crossed order while using a modifier-only hotkey like R⌥ — rare, and always recoverable as above.
• Also note: two hotkey presses within 300 ms are deliberately counted as one, so an extremely fast double-tap won't stop a toggle recording. Pause briefly and press again.

Text isn't pasted automatically

Symptoms: Transcription completes but text goes to clipboard instead of being pasted at your cursor.

Solutions:

• Auto-paste requires Accessibility permission. Check System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility.
• If you skipped this during setup, go to Settings > Permissions to enable it.
• Some apps with custom text fields may not support auto-paste. In those cases, use Cmd+V to paste from the clipboard.

Transcription is inaccurate

Solutions:

• Try a larger model. Bigger models are slower but more accurate. Check the model catalog in Settings > Dictation Models for accuracy ratings.
• Speak clearly and at a natural pace. Very fast or very quiet speech can reduce accuracy.
• Make sure your microphone is working properly. Check the audio level indicator during recording.
• For English, Parakeet V2 offers the best accuracy-to-speed ratio.
• For non-English languages, use a multilingual Whisper model or OpenAI.

Model download is stuck or fails

Solutions:

• Check your internet connection. Model downloads require a stable connection.
• Try cancelling and restarting the download from Settings > Dictation Models.
• Large models (1GB+) may take several minutes depending on your connection speed.
• If downloads consistently fail, try a smaller model first to verify connectivity.

Murmur uses too much memory

Solutions:

• Larger transcription models use more RAM. The tiny model uses about 400 MB while large-v3 uses about 5 GB.
• Switch to a smaller model if memory is a concern.
• Parakeet V2 offers excellent accuracy at moderate memory usage (~600 MB download).
• Apple Speech uses system-managed resources and has no additional memory overhead.

Context-aware AI isn't detecting my app

Solutions:

• Context-aware AI requires Screen Recording permission (for window titles) or Accessibility (for browser URLs and text field context). Check Settings > Permissions.
• Check that Context-Aware Refinement is enabled — see Context Settings.
• Browser URL extraction works with Safari, Chrome, Arc, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Orion, and Firefox.
• Editor context detection works with VS Code, Cursor, Xcode, and Zed.

AI refinement isn't running

Symptoms: Dictation pastes exactly what you said, with no cleanup.

Solutions:

• Check the master toggle: Enable AI Refinement in Settings > Refinement Workflows.
• At least one AI provider must be configured in Settings > AI Providers. An orange "Configure an AI provider" banner appears if none is set up.
• Check whether the app is in the "Skip refinement in these apps" exception list.
• Very long dictations (over ~3,000 characters) skip refinement by design.
• If the provider is slow or unreachable, Murmur pastes the raw text rather than making you wait. Test the provider with its Test button in Settings > AI Providers.

Command hotkey does nothing

Solutions:

• Command Mode needs its own shortcut, separate from dictation — set it in Settings > Dictation.
• The Enable Command Mode toggle in Settings > Command Workflows must be on, and an AI provider must be configured.
• Check the "Skip commands in these apps" exception list for the app you are in.
• See Command Mode for the full setup checklist.

My History is empty but my recordings exist

If History shows nothing after a migration or restore, rebuild it from the audio on disk — see Library Recovery. Recovery is non-destructive and skips anything already in the library.

My microphone changed and the recording kept going / paused briefly

(New in 1.6) This is expected. Murmur now survives microphone changes mid-recording — connect AirPods, unplug a USB mic, or switch inputs and the recording continues after a brief "Reacquiring audio…" pause while it re-acquires the new device. Which mic it uses is governed by your Microphone Priority ladder. See Automatic Device Switching.

Meeting recording stops or is interrupted

Solutions:

• (Improved in 1.6) Meetings no longer stop just because the microphone changed — a headphone connect/disconnect is handled by re-acquiring audio, not by ending the recording. If capture stalls, the meeting bar shows "Reacquiring audio source" and resumes on its own.
• If you see "Couldn't save audio to disk — storage may be full," free up disk space — Murmur couldn't write the latest audio chunk.
• Keep your Mac awake during long recordings. Adjust Energy Saver settings if needed, since sleep still ends a session.
• Either way, your audio is safe: Murmur saves meetings in 5-minute chunks and can recover and resume an interrupted meeting from where it left off, even after a crash or force-quit.

Trial expired but I haven't used it for 7 days

Solutions:

• The trial starts on first launch, not first use. If you installed Murmur but didn't use it for a week, the trial may have expired.
• The trial state is stored in your Keychain, so reinstalling the app won't reset it.
• Purchase a license at murmur.you for $29 (one-time, includes 2 Mac activations).

License validation fails

Solutions:

• Murmur validates your license online periodically. If you're offline, it uses a 30-day grace period.
• Check that your license key is entered correctly in Settings > License.
• Each license supports 2 Mac activations. If you've exceeded this, contact hello@murmur.you for help.

Still need help?

Email us at hello@murmur.you. We aim to respond within 2 business days.