Docs

Your blabe account and license

Sign in with the license key from your purchase. blabe provides the transcription, so there’s no other account or key to set up.

Sign in

  1. Open Settings… and choose the Account tab.
  2. Paste the license key from your purchase in the key field.
  3. Click Sign In.

The tab then shows your plan and usage. The welcome window has the same step, on its Sign In to blabe page, and Skip for now lets you finish setup and sign in later. Polar emails you a receipt with your license key. Until you sign in, holding the hotkey shows “Sign in to blabe” in the pill and the top item in the menu is Sign In to blabe….

What Settings → Account shows

Signed out, the blabe account section has the key field, Sign In, and the line “Transcription is included with blabe” with a See pricing link.

Signed in, it shows:

  • your plan: Subscribed, Free trial, Trial ended, Subscription ended, Access turned off or Plan unavailable right now;
  • a usage bar showing how much of your allowance you’ve used, with no numbers shown;
  • a usage line only when you’re near or at your limit: “Most of this month’s use” from 80%, then “Monthly limit reached” (on a trial, “Most of your trial used”, then “Trial limit reached”);
  • “Resets MMM d” on a subscription, or “Trial ends MMM d” on a trial, with your own date;
  • Sign Out;
  • on a subscription, Manage Subscription…, which opens your Polar customer portal. It isn’t shown on the free trial.

blabe asks the service for your plan and usage when you open Settings or the welcome window and after a dictation, never on a timer. The menu shows your plan, the same usage line, and Refresh Account, which asks the service for your latest plan and usage when you click it.

A link that starts with blabe://activate?key= opens blabe at Settings → Account with the key already filled in. You still click Sign In: nothing is signed in until you do. Use a link only if you opened it from your own purchase receipt.

Sign out

Click Sign Out in Settings → Account. This Mac is signed out at once, and blabe asks the service to end the session. If the service can’t confirm it, Settings says “Signed out here — server unconfirmed”. If this Mac couldn’t remove its own session, Settings says “Couldn’t sign out on this Mac. Try again.” and you stay signed in. After you sign out, dictation stops until you sign in again.

Up to 3 Macs

One subscription covers up to 3 Macs, and you sign in to blabe on each with the same key. Signing out of blabe doesn’t free a Mac’s seat. To free a seat, for example to use a fourth Mac, deactivate the Mac you no longer use in your Polar customer portal. If all 3 seats are taken, signing in on another Mac shows “All 3 Macs are in use. Free one in your Polar customer portal, then sign in again.”

The free trial

For 2 days, everything works. The trial starts when you click Start Free Trial, with no card, no email and no signup. You get one free trial per Mac, and it has a fair-use limit too. While it runs, Settings → Account shows Free trial and “Trial ends” with the date.

After the trial

When the 2-day trial ends, new dictation stops until you subscribe. Once the service confirms it, the pill says “Trial ended — subscribe to keep going” and Settings → Account shows Trial ended. You stay signed in to the ended trial so blabe can check its status. Being offline or seeing a connection error doesn’t mean the trial has ended. What you’ve already dictated isn’t affected. Starting the trial again doesn’t reset it. Subscribe on the pricing page, then in Settings → Account click Sign Out, enter the license key from your purchase and click Sign In. Make a new recording: blabe won’t retry the ended trial’s recording under your new account.

When a subscription ends, new dictation stops too. When blabe learns of it, after a dictation or when it refreshes your account, the pill or Settings → Account says “Subscription ended” and blabe signs this Mac out. Subscribe again on the pricing page and sign in with your license key. See troubleshooting for each message.

Subscribe and billing

The pricing page has the plans: $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year, on up to 3 Macs, with cancel anytime. Payment and tax are handled by Polar. Transcription is included within a fair-use monthly limit, so there’s no separate transcription bill. If you reach the limit, new dictation pauses until your allowance refreshes, and blabe says when. The allowance refreshes every month on the day you subscribed, including on a yearly plan. What you’ve already dictated isn’t affected. The usage bar in Settings → Account shows how much you’ve used.

Cancel or change plan

Cancel, switch between monthly and yearly, or update your card in your Polar customer portal. After you cancel, blabe keeps working until the end of the period you paid for, then new dictation stops until you subscribe. What you've already dictated isn't affected.

Offline use

Dictation needs the internet, because blabe sends your audio to its service to be transcribed. Without a connection the pill says “No internet” and blabe keeps the recording, so you can choose Retry Transcription in the menu once you’re back online. Signing in needs the internet too.

Refunds

No. Try blabe free for 2 days before you subscribe, and cancel anytime to stop the next renewal. Refunds are given only where the law requires them.