Recorder troubleshooting
The short list of things that actually go wrong, and what fixes each one.
The menu-bar icon is gone
You (or something) quit the app. Relaunch it with Spotlight — Cmd+Space, type "Dockable Recorder", press Enter. The icon returns to the menu bar.
"Record Screen" shows a black or empty capture
Screen-recording permission isn't active. Two common causes:
- Wrong list. In System Settings → Privacy & Security, the app must be in the top Screen & System Audio Recording list — not the audio-only list below it.
- No restart. macOS applies this permission only after the app fully restarts. Quit the recorder from its menu and relaunch it.
My upload never appeared in the Library
- Open the recorder's Activity Log from the menu-bar menu.
- A line like "Sent 'My recording'" means the upload completed — check the Library again for your exact title; Dockable keeps recorder titles as-is and never renames them.
- No "Sent" line? The upload is still retrying in the background. It backs off gradually (up to an hour between attempts) but never gives up while the app is running. Keep the app open.
- If the log shows a permanent failure mentioning the device key, the device may have been revoked — re-enroll from Settings → Recorder Devices in the dashboard.
Tip: Force-quitting the app mid-upload delays the send until the next retry after relaunch. The recording itself is safe on disk either way.
Stop Recording doesn't seem to respond
Give it up to ten seconds — the recorder has a built-in safety timeout, and even in the worst case it force-finishes the recording and salvages everything captured so far. If the app is truly frozen (rare), quit and relaunch it; recordings in progress are written to disk continuously, so completed portions survive.
The mic or camera didn't record
Both are opt-in checkboxes in the picker — confirm they were checked. If they were, macOS permission was likely denied: check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone (or Camera) and make sure Dockable Recorder is allowed. By design, a mic or camera failure never cancels the recording — it proceeds screen-only and notes the fallback in the Activity Log.
FAQ
Where are recordings stored on my Mac?
In the app's private application-support folder, kept for 3 days after a successful send, then cleaned automatically.
How do I completely disconnect a Mac?
Revoke the device in Settings → Recorder Devices in the dashboard. The recorder on that Mac can no longer upload anything.