Rylo Sidekick watches for calls in the background so you don't have to remember to open it — when it notices you've joined one, a small notification appears with a one-click "Start captioning" button.

Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack Huddles, FaceTime, Google Meet, Discord, and Webex — whether you're using the desktop app or the browser version, across Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Arc, Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera.

A small card appears on your screen showing the app you're calling in, with a Start captioning button. Click it to begin — captions won't start on their own unless you confirm. If you ignore the card, it disappears on its own after a few seconds and won't interrupt you again for that same call.

You can always start captioning yourself — click Start transcribing from the Sidekick home screen, or use Start Session from the menu bar icon. This works for any call, detected or not, including apps not on the list above.

The most common reason is the Accessibility permission not being granted — without it, Sidekick relies on a less precise fallback that only recognizes a smaller set of apps and can occasionally miss a call. See Setting up Rylo Sidekick's permissions to check or grant it.

No. Sidekick only checks which apps are open and, if you've granted Accessibility, their window titles — it does not listen to or record any audio until you actually start a captioning session.