The things that actually go wrong.

First run

macOS asks for Microphone and Screen Recording the first time you launch the app. Grant both, then quit and reopen it. macOS does not apply a permission change to a process that is already running, and skipping that restart is the single most common reason a first session comes back half-empty.

If you dismissed a prompt by accident, both toggles live in System Settings → Privacy & Security, under Microphone and Screen Recording. The same restart rule applies after you change one there.

Audio, and why you might hear only one side

The app captures two things separately: your microphone, and the system-audio loopback that everyone else's voice arrives on. They fail independently, which makes the symptom a diagnosis.

• Only the interviewer is transcribed — Microphone permission is missing, or the wrong input device is selected.
• Only you are transcribed — Screen Recording permission is missing. It carries the system-audio loopback as well as the screenshots, which is not obvious from its name.
• Neither side is transcribed — the session has not been started. ⌃⌥⌘S starts and stops it, and the toolbar shows a recording dot while it runs.

Hidden from screen sharing and recording

⌃⌥⌘V hides the app's window from screen shares, screen recordings and screenshots, and it is on from the first launch. What you share shows whatever is behind the panel. It works through macOS, and macOS does not honour it everywhere: on recent versions, some capture tools still see the window, and the app cannot tell when that happens. The toolbar's Hidden / Visible label shows the setting, not proof — check with the tool you will use before it matters.

It changes what a screen share shows, nothing else. Whether you may use the app at all is a separate question — see the last section below.

Sessions

Transcripts, screenshots and solutions are saved on your own disk as you go. The 50 most recent rounds are kept and older ones are dropped, so a round you want to keep past that should be exported rather than left in the list. Screenshots persist as thumbnails; the full-resolution frames are not retained.

The interface is available in 7 languages. That is the application's own interface — it is unrelated to what the speech engine can transcribe.

Hotkeys

17 of the 18 can be rebound in Settings; Open Settings stays fixed. These are the defaults. The first build used plain ⌘ keys (⌘S, ⌘H, ⌘R), which took Save, Hide and Reload away from every other app; updating moves an install still on those to these, and a key you set yourself stays. If four keys at a time is too many, the Hyper key below makes each one two.

Two keys instead of four

The Hyper key turns one held key into ⌃⌥⇧⌘, the same four modifiers Raycast and Hyperkey send, and while it is on every ⌃⌥⌘ hotkey above answers to that as well. So each one is that key plus a letter: ⌃⌥⌘R becomes ✦R, and the hints in the app say so while the key works. A hotkey you rebound to other modifiers, say ⌥⌘L, keeps its full combination. It is off until you switch it on, and only on macOS.

• Turning it on — Settings (⌃⌥⌘,) → Hotkeys → Hyper key. The key is Caps Lock unless you pick another: Right ⌘ Command, Right ⌥ Option, Right ⌃ Control, Right ⇧ Shift or F18. A right-hand modifier loses its own job while it is the Hyper key: Right ⌘ and Right ⌃ their shortcuts, Right ⌥ its special characters, Right ⇧ its capitals. Include ⇧ Shift is on; switch it off and the key sends ⌃⌥⌘ alone.
• What macOS asks for — Accessibility, the first time you switch it on, never at first launch. While the key is held, the app adds the modifiers to the next key you press, and changing another app's keystrokes is what Accessibility covers. It does not record, store or send what you type. No restart is needed: once you allow it, the Hyper key starts on its own. Without it the Hyper key stays off and Caps Lock and your hotkeys work as before, and if you take it away later, the same happens. "Set up in another app" asks for nothing.
• What happens to Caps Lock — a quick press on its own still turns caps on and off, light included. Held with another key, it is the Hyper key, and caps stays as it was.
• Turning it off — switch it off in the same place and Caps Lock comes back at once. Quitting the app gives it back too, and so does a crash. If the app and its helper are both killed at once, the next launch puts it back, and restarting the Mac always does.
• Password fields — the Hyper key does nothing while macOS Secure Input is on: in password fields, and in Terminal with Secure Keyboard Entry. The full four-key hotkey still works there.
• A Hyper key from Raycast, Hyperkey or Karabiner-Elements — pick "Set up in another app" in the key list. The app then runs nothing of its own, asks for no permission, and its hotkeys answer to the Hyper key you already have. When Settings sees Raycast's Hyper Key on, it offers to switch to this and match Raycast's Shift setting. If another app already has a shortcut on ⌃⌥⇧⌘ and the same letter, such as a Raycast Hyper command, that app gets the press.
• When Caps Lock is already taken — if Raycast's Hyper Key, Hyperkey, Karabiner-Elements, BetterTouchTool or System Settings → Keyboard → Modifier Keys already remaps it, the app leaves it alone and Settings names the tool, so you can pick another key or use that tool's Hyper key. Settings also warns you while Karabiner-Elements is running.

Still stuck

Mail support@understudio.app with your app version (currently 1.0.0), your macOS version, and what you expected to happen. There is no ticket queue — it reaches someone who works on the product.

The one thing this page cannot help with

Whether you are allowed to use it. That is set by whoever is running the interview, and it is not a question the software can answer for you — our position is here.