Install & Permissions Guide

Last updated: 2026-10-15

1. Requirements

An Apple Silicon Mac (M1, M2, M3, M4 or later)
macOS 13 or later for dictation. AI cleanup needs macOS 26 with Apple Intelligence; dictation itself works on macOS 13+.
A microphone (built-in is fine)

2. Installation

Download the .dmg from the pricing section or direct from gettessen.com/download.
Open the .dmg and drag Tessen into /Applications.
Launch Tessen from Applications or Spotlight. On the very first launch it opens a short setup window; after that it lives in the menu bar — there is no dock icon or main window, by design. When the setup window offers it, press Start free trial to begin your 14-day Pro trial — there is no code to enter, no email, and no card.

3. The permissions macOS will ask for

The setup window asks for these, one row each, with one button per row. Grant the microphone and you can move on immediately — Tessen notices the grant by itself and moves to the next step. Accessibility is only needed the moment Tessen types into another app, so if you skip it now you will be asked again in context. Speech Recognition is asked for by macOS itself the first time it is needed, so you may see it as a separate prompt.

Microphone

Required to hear you at all. If you accidentally deny this, re-enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone and restart Tessen.

Speech Recognition

Some macOS versions gate speech recognition behind this permission separately from the microphone. Grant it the same way, under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Speech Recognition.

Accessibility

This is the one people miss, and it is the single most common reason Tessen appears to "do nothing."

Accessibility is what lets Tessen type the words it heard into whatever app your cursor is in. Without it, dictation can still run internally — you may see the listening indicator, and nothing looks broken — but no text ever lands anywhere, because Tessen has no permission to type on your behalf. There is no error dialog for this; it is simply silent.

Grant it under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, then toggle Tessen on. If Tessen isn't in the list yet, click the + button and add it from /Applications. Tessen checks for the grant every couple of seconds and starts listening for the hotkey by itself, so there is nothing to quit or reopen.

4. First dictation

Click into any text field — Mail, Notes, a browser, your terminal, anything.
Hold the hotkey (the Fn key by default) and speak. You can pick a different shortcut in the setup window.
Release the hotkey. Your words should appear where your cursor was, cleaned up and punctuated.

If nothing appears after releasing the hotkey, check these in order: (1) is macOS's own System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation switched on — with it off, every recognition fails however many permissions you granted; (2) is the Accessibility grant from Section 3 in place; (3) is the microphone grant still in place.

5. Command-Line Tools & Diagnostics

Tessen includes a native CLI utility. To use it from your terminal, choose Install Command Line Tool… from the Tessen menu-bar menu once (macOS may ask you to run one command yourself if it cannot place the link); then:

tessen doctor — Inspect permissions, speech models, and audio pipeline health.
tessen transcribe <file.wav> — Transcribe local audio files on-device.
tessen history — View recent on-device dictation logs.
tessen dict add <term> — Add custom vocabulary words directly from terminal.

6. Still stuck?

Email support@gettessen.com with what you tried and what happened (or didn't). A human reads every message.