Getting Started with the Fireflies Desktop App

Don’t want to miss important details during your meetings? The Fireflies Desktop app helps you stay focused while capturing everything in real time.

It brings Live Assist to your screen in a real-time floating pane, showing live notes, transcripts, AskFred responses, AI Skills, and instant summaries while your meeting is happening.

It works with and without the Fireflies.ai Notetaker (bot) and can automatically detect and capture conversations across meetings, calls, and supported apps.

Let’s take a look at what you’ll see when you open the Fireflies Desktop app 🚀

🚀Home Screen

This is the first screen you see when you open the Fireflies Desktop app. It brings together everything you need to manage your meetings in one place.

At the top, you’ll find quick access to your recent meetings and recording options. From here, you can start a meeting, review past conversations, or prepare for what’s coming up next — without switching screens.

🕒 Recent Meetings

Recent Meetings shows a list of your latest meetings, making it easy to go back and review past conversations.

From here, you can:

• Shows basic details like the Meeting name, Date, Meeting host, and Time

• Click the Refresh icon to update and reload your meetings list

• Click any meeting to open it in the Fireflies web dashboard.

• Copy or share the meeting link using the available actions

👉 Learn more about the Fireflies Notebook → Review transcripts, summaries, and highlights in the Notebook.

🎙Capture & Record

Use Capture and Record to bring meetings into Fireflies. Fireflies.ai Notetaker joins your meeting, captures the conversation, and creates a transcript, summary, and key takeaways you can review later.

You can either:

• Invite Fireflies.ai Notetaker (bot) to join your meeting

• Record system audio directly from your computer (without a bot)

Capture/Upload Meeting

• Capture is used when you want Fireflies to join a live meeting, schedule an upcoming meeting, or upload an existing audio or video file.

• When the fireflies.ai Notetaker (bot) joins:

  • Live Assist opens automatically

  • Speaker labels are available

  • Sales Assist works

  • Meeting audio and video are saved

👉 Learn how to add Fireflies to a meeting → How to add Fireflies to a meeting as a participant

Record Meetings (System Audio – No Bot Required)

Recording captures system audio from your computer, supporting a wide range of apps without inviting a bot. It works for audio notes, in-person conversations, and phone calls too.

You can do this in two ways:

• Manually — Click Record, then click Start Recording to begin capturing system audio right away.

  

• Automatically — Fireflies auto-captures supported apps and notifies you to start recording (without bot) or invite Fireflies.ai Notetaker ( with bot).

  

Fully supported apps include:

Browsers

• Google Chrome

• Firefox

• Safari

• Microsoft Edge

• Brave

• Vivaldi

• Zen Browser

• Perplexity Comet (browser with URL support)

• ChatGPT Atlas (browser with URL support)

Meeting & Calling Apps

• Google Meet

• Zoom

• Microsoft Teams

• Webex

• Skype

• Dialpad

• Lifesize

• GoToMeeting

• Slack Huddle

• WhatsApp

• Aircall

• FaceTime

• Discord

• Phone calls

📱 Phone Call Recording

• macOS — Supports iPhone calls. Enable Calls from iPhone on both your Mac FaceTime app and your iPhone FaceTime settings, and Fireflies will capture those calls via system audio.

  

• Windows — Supports both Android and iPhone calls. Pair your phone with the Windows Phone Link app and Fireflies will record calls from your computer.

  

⚙Settings

The Settings menu gives acess to your account details, meeting history, and preferences. You can also check your plan and AI credit usage from here.

When you click Settings in the Desktop app, a page opens with three tabs: Meeting Preferences, Notifications, and Permissions.

Meeting Preference

These settings control how Fireflies joins meetings, captures conversations, shares recaps, and provides app information.

Notifications

These settings control when Fireflies sends alerts during meetings.

Permissions

Manage essential app permissions like microphone and system audio access to ensure smooth meeting capture on your device. All permissions must be granted for full functionality.

📅 Upcoming Meetings

A collapsible panel on the right sidebar shows what’s coming up next and provides quick access to key meeting preferences.

From here, you can:

• Auto-Join Toggles: Set preferences for auto-join and email recaps.

• Calendar Sync Status: View your calendar's sync status.

• Meeting Language Settings: Choose your preferred meeting language.

• Upcoming Meetings: Stay updated with your next scheduled meeting.

• Meeting prep (on hover): Hover over an upcoming meeting to see meeting prep from similar past meetings. This appears only when meeting prep is available.

This panel helps you stay prepared for upcoming meetings without leaving the Desktop app.

🔗 Join a Meeting from the Desktop App

The Fireflies Desktop app makes it easy to join meetings and have Fireflies capture them at the same time. When a meeting is scheduled or detected, Fireflies.ai Notetaker can join the meeting automatically based on your preferences.

You can also add Fireflies to an already ongoing meeting by simply pasting the meeting link.

Add Fireflies.ai Notetaker to a Meeting

1. Start or join your meeting (for example, a Google Meet or Zoom call).

2. If the meeting is detected automatically, you’ll receive a notification with the option to invite Fireflies.ai Notetaker or record using system audio.

   

To manually add Fireflies to live meeting:

1. Copy the meeting link.

2. Open the Fireflies Desktop app and click Capture → Add to live meeting.

3. Paste the meeting link, name the meeting if needed, and click Start Capturing.

   

4. Fireflies.ai Notetaker joins the meeting as a participant. It may take up to 30 seconds for Fireflies to join and begin capturing.

Once added, Fireflies captures the conversation and creates a transcript, summary, and key points that you can review later.

🪟 Floating Pane

The Floating Pane is a sleek, movable overlay that delivers Live Assist during meetings/calls—showing real-time notes, transcripts, action items, AskFred answers, and Sales Assist suggestions without leaving your workflow.

By default, the Floating Pane auto-opens when Fireflies joins a meeting (as a bot) or captures system audio (without a bot).

Key features:

• Drag it anywhere: Click and drag the top bar to reposition the pane on your screen.

  

• Collapse/Expand: Click the collapse icon to minimize it to a small dock; click again to expand.

  

• Full screen mode: Click the full-screen button to expand it across your display for focused viewing.

  

• Privacy controls (host only): to control who can access the Live Assist view — such as teammates, participants, anyone with the link, or only yourself

  

• Stop meeting (visible to the host only): When clicked, it removes the Fireflies bot, ends the meeting, and saves the meeting.

  

• Screenshare privacy: By default, the floating pane is not visible during screen sharing, ensuring your Live Assist panel remains private while presenting. If you want it to appear while screen sharing, you can change this setting in the Desktop app.

  

⚡ Live Assist (Real-Time Notes & Insights)

Live Assist shows live notes, transcripts, action items, and AskFred answers during meetings, all in a floating panel on your desktop. It helps you follow the conversation without switching apps.

👉 Learn more: See how Live Assist works during meetings on desktop

💼 Sales Assist (Real-Time Suggestions for Customer Calls)

Sales Assist works inside Live Assist and provides knowledge-based answers and follow-ups during customer conversations. It pulls from your uploaded knowledge base and uses AI credits for each suggestion.

👉 Learn more: Learn how to use Sales Assist during customer calls

⚡ Instant Summaries (Post-Call)

When a meeting ends, Instant Summaries appear right away if Live Assist was open. You can immediately review key takeaways and notes without waiting for processing.

👉 Learn more: Understand how Instant Summaries work after meetings

🔔 Desktop Notifications

The Fireflies Desktop app sends timely notifications to help you capture meetings and use Live Assist without missing a step.

You’ll see notifications to:

• Auto-detect meetings not on your calendar and notify you so you can start recording right away

• Invite the Fireflies AI Note-taker to join an ongoing meeting with a single click

• Open the Live Assist pane as soon as Fireflies joins, giving you instant access to live notes, transcripts, and insights

These notifications make it easy to start recording, add Fireflies to a meeting, and access Live Assist with just a click.

🔄 Recap

The Fireflies Desktop app helps you capture conversations and get real-time support during meetings and calls.

• Record with or without the Fireflies.ai Notetaker (bot)

• Auto-detect and capture meetings, calls, and supported apps

• Use Live Assist in a real-time floating pane for notes, transcripts, and AskFred

• Enable Sales Assist for knowledge-based answers during customer calls

• Get Instant Summaries as soon as the meeting ends

Everything stays accessible in one place, so you can focus on the conversation — not the notes.