Microphone
Why. blabe records your voice while you hold the hotkey, and only then. The orange microphone indicator shows only while the key is held.
Turn it on. Click Allow Microphone in the welcome window and choose Allow. macOS shows this message: “blabe listens only while you hold the dictation key, to turn your speech into text.”
If you chose Don’t Allow before, open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone and turn on blabe. The menu item Grant Microphone Access… opens the same place.
Without it. The pill says “Microphone access needed” and nothing is recorded.
Input Monitoring
Why. blabe has to notice when you hold the hotkey, in any app. It listens for the hotkey and for typing that should cancel a send, and never stores what you type.
Turn it on. Click Allow Input Monitoring, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring and turn on blabe. If macOS offers to Quit & Reopen blabe, choose Later, because blabe picks up the permission on its own. If the menu ever shows Relaunch blabe to Finish Setup, click it.
Without it. Holding the hotkey does nothing.
Accessibility
Why. blabe pastes for you by pressing ⌘V, presses Return when you send to a coding agent, and can stop Esc from reaching your app when you cancel a dictation.
Turn it on. Click Allow Accessibility, then open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and turn on blabe. The welcome page moves on by itself.
Without it. Your words stay on the clipboard and the pill says “Copied — grant Accessibility to paste”. Press ⌘V yourself.
Check or change a permission later
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and choose Microphone, Input Monitoring or Accessibility. The menu bar icon shows a warning while a permission is missing, and the top item in its menu opens the right place.
If a permission is on but blabe still asks for it, reset blabe’s permissions and grant them again. Quit blabe first.
tccutil reset All com.montalvo.blabeblabe asks for these three and nothing else, except Login Items approval if you turn on Launch at login.