Install HuddleOwl on a Mac.Three steps, one click, no Terminal.

The three steps

1. Download the build for your chip. Apple Silicon or Intel, and if you are unsure, the Apple menu then About This Mac will say.
2. Open the .dmg and drag HuddleOwl into Applications.
3. Open it. That is the whole thing.

What macOS asks on first launch

When you download a file, macOS attaches an attribute to it called com.apple.quarantine. On first launch, Gatekeeper reads that attribute and checks whether the app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarised by Apple, which means Apple has scanned the build and issued a ticket for it. HuddleOwl is signed and notarised from 0.4.0 onwards, and the ticket is stapled into the download, so the check passes without the app needing to phone anywhere.

You still get one dialog, and you should: macOS asks whether you are sure about any app you downloaded, notarised or not. The difference is what it says. A notarised app gets"Apple checked it for malicious software and none was detected" and a Cancel or Open choice. Click Open. It asks once and never again. An app that failed the check gets refused instead, with no Open button at all.

You can confirm that for yourself rather than taking our word for it. This prints the signing authority and the team behind it:

codesign -dv --verbose=4 /Applications/HuddleOwl.app

And this asks Gatekeeper directly, which is the same check macOS runs when you double click:

spctl --assess --type execute --verbose /Applications/HuddleOwl.app

Separately, every release publishes SHA256SUMS.txt, so you can confirm the file you have is the file that was built:

shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing

If macOS says the app is damaged

That message means you are on 0.3.0 or earlier. Those builds were ad-hoc signed and not notarised, so Gatekeeper refused them, and the wording macOS uses for that refusal is the same wording it uses for a genuinely corrupted download. Nothing was damaged.

The fix was to clear the quarantine attribute, which removes the flag from that one app and touches nothing else:

xattr -cr /Applications/HuddleOwl.app

You should be wary of any app that asks you to do that, because it means trusting the developer instead of Apple's check. Downloading the current build is the better answer, and then you are trusting neither of us on faith.

The two permissions it will ask for

Microphone

Asked the first time you start a meeting. This is your side of the call. Without it there is no transcript.

Screen and System Audio Recording

Asked when HuddleOwl captures the other side of the call. It sounds alarming and it is worth being precise about: macOS puts system audio capture behind the same permission as screen recording, so granting it is how an app hears what comes out of your speakers. HuddleOwl does not record your screen.

If capture fails after you have granted it, the both-sides guide covers the stale-permission case, which needs a full quit and reopen rather than a second grant.

Where your meetings are kept

In a folder on your disk that you can open from inside the app. Transcripts, cues, briefs and draft emails all live there, and deleting the folder deletes all of it. There is no server holding a second copy and no account to close.

Uninstalling

Drag the app to the Trash, then delete that data folder. That is the whole procedure.