Hintglass
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Hintglass permissions
Hintglass, a macOS menu-bar app, needs three permissions in System Settings → Privacy & Security: Microphone to hear you, Screen & System Audio Recording to hear the meeting app, and Device Control and Data Access for the hold key.
Hintglass asks for them at your first Start session, before the session runs. The Microphone you allow at macOS’s prompt; the other two you switch on in their panes.
Grant them
- Choose Start session from the Hintglass menu. Hintglass asks for what it still needs now. If something earlier isn’t ready, such as a connection that hasn’t passed its Test, the panel says so first and nothing is asked yet.
- When macOS asks for the Microphone, allow it.
- Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording and switch Hintglass on. Hintglass adds itself to that list the first time it asks.
- If you use the hold key, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Device Control and Data Access and switch Hintglass on. Only Hold a key mode, the default, needs it.
- Quit Hintglass from its menu and open it again. Hintglass gets what you switched on in a pane only once it reopens.
- Choose Start session again. If a permission is still missing, the panel names it after “Permission needed:” and says what to do.
Microphone
The microphone hears you. Your side of the call is transcribed on your Mac, so the next answer knows what you have already said.
- Hintglass asks for it at your first Start session, with macOS’s own prompt. Allow it.
- If you didn’t allow it, macOS doesn’t ask again. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone, switch Hintglass on, then quit Hintglass from its menu and open it again: macOS gives Hintglass the microphone only once it reopens.
Screen & System Audio Recording
This is how Hintglass hears the meeting app you chose in Settings → Meeting app: the interviewer’s side of the call. The screenshot ⌥⌘C (Option-Command-C) takes of the window in front of you comes through it too.
- macOS may ask for it the first time you open Settings…: Settings lists the apps that are running for Meeting app, and listing them needs it. Otherwise Hintglass asks at your first Start session.
- Switch Hintglass on in its pane, then quit Hintglass and open it again. Until it reopens, Hintglass still finds the permission missing.
- Until it is on, Settings → Meeting app shows only your last choice and “Couldn’t list running apps: …”.
Device Control and Data Access
The hold key needs it: Hintglass reads right ⌥ (Right Option), or whichever Hold key you chose in Settings → Trigger, through this permission. It is the pane macOS 27 shows for the Accessibility permission.
- No prompt can grant it. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Device Control and Data Access, switch Hintglass on, then quit Hintglass and open it again.
- Only Hold a key mode needs it. In Key combination mode, set in Settings → Trigger, Hintglass never asks for it: see Hintglass shortcuts.
- Without it, a start in Hold a key mode stops at “Permission needed:”, naming Device Control and Data Access.
See what is missing
- While a permission is missing, the Hintglass icon in the menu bar turns into a warning triangle, and the menu lists the permission by name.
- Open Setup… in the menu lists each one under “Permissions needed”, with an Open System Settings button that opens its pane.
Your audio never leaves the Mac: Get started with Hintglass says what Hintglass sends, and where.