Settings reference

Open Settings from the profile menu in the main window (click your avatar, then Settings) or from the menubar popover’s Settings item. A row of chips under the title jumps to each section; the sections appear in this order, top to bottom: Devices, Permissions (macOS only), Privacy & Sharing, AI chat, Diagnostics, Account, About. Every on/off setting is a switch on its row and takes effect as soon as you flip it — except AI chat, which asks you to confirm first.

Devices

Camera preview — a live feed from your selected camera, shown once Camera permission is granted. If access is denied, this box instead shows Open System Settings (straight to the Camera privacy pane) and Try again.
Camera — picks the camera Petal publishes. If you’re in a meeting the switch applies immediately (“Switched camera”); otherwise it’s saved for your next join. The choice is remembered across launches. If the saved camera isn’t connected, Petal falls back to the default one and says so.
Camera resolution and Camera frame rate (Windows only) — pick a capture mode; modes the camera doesn’t support are greyed out.
Microphone — picks your recording device. Applies immediately if you’re in a meeting; otherwise saved for your next join.
Speaker — picks your playback device. Same immediate-vs-saved behavior as microphone.

Permissions (macOS)

Four rows, each showing whether Petal currently has that permission and an Open System Settings button that opens the matching privacy pane if it doesn’t:

Screen Recording — required to share your screen or windows.
Microphone — required to speak in a meeting.
Camera — needed to appear on camera and for the Settings preview. It’s the one permission setup lets you skip; grant it here whenever you first want to appear on camera.
Accessibility — required for remote control: it’s what lets Petal replay a teammate’s approved clicks and keystrokes into windows you share.

Use this section any time you denied a permission during setup — it’s the same recoverable flow, just reachable later. Windows has no permission model, so this section doesn’t appear there.

Remote control of my shared windows — one of three: Ask me each time (default: “You approve or deny every request.”), Allow automatically (“Anyone in the meeting can take control.”), or Off (“Requests are refused.”). Changing it takes effect immediately — anyone currently controlling one of your windows loses control on the spot — and it stays your default for future meetings. The meeting bar’s More menu can turn it off for just the current call. See Remote control.
Local echo (experimental) — off by default. When you’re the one controlling someone else’s shared window, this shows an instant local preview of your own clicks and typing (a ripple, a pending text strip) before the real frame comes back. It’s a prediction, not confirmation.
Debug mode — off by default. Adds a Debug button to every remote window’s header, showing frame counters, glass-to-glass latency, and packet loss for that share.

AI chat

AI chat on shared windows — off by default. Flipping the switch on opens a confirmation step that spells out both consequences before anything changes: you get an AI chat button on every shared window in your meetings (the ones you share and the ones other people share), and anyone in your meetings can start AI chat on a window you share, which sends that window’s content and the room’s voice to Google while a session is live. Turn on AI chat confirms; Cancel leaves it off. Turning it off again is immediate. See AI chat.
Gemini API key (tagged optional) — appears once AI chat is on (or a key is already saved). Bring your own key so AI chat bills your own Google account (roughly 2–4¢ per minute). Free-tier keys may allow Google to use content to improve their models. Save stores it on this machine; Remove deletes it.

Diagnostics

Export logs — reveals a zip of your local Petal logs in Finder (or Explorer on Windows) so you can attach it to a bug report. The dropdown beside it picks the range: Last 2 days, Last 7 days, or All logs. Nothing leaves your machine on its own.
Send crash and error reports to Sentry (macOS) — on by default. Sends diagnostic reports (not just crashes) to help identify problems. Turn it off if you don’t want any diagnostic data leaving your Mac.

Petal also records a small set of anonymous product events (things like “meeting joined”, “share started”, “reconnect recovered”) to help the maintainers see where real users hit trouble. The exact event list is published in the repository’s docs/POSTHOG_EVENT_ALLOWLIST.md, and it never includes window titles, room names, or content. There is no in-app toggle for it yet; a build from source without an analytics key sends nothing.

Account

Display name — the name shown on your tile, in the participant list, and on the header of every window you share.
Identity color — one of six accent colors (plum, blue, green, amber, lilac, slate) used for your cursor, your share border, and your name chip, so teammates can tell whose pointer or annotation is whose.

About

The section header shows the version and build you’re running.

Updates → Check for updates — Petal checks automatically on launch; this button forces an immediate check and reports the result inline.
Reset Petal → Reset… — after a confirmation (“Reset and quit”), clears your local identity, saved rooms and favorites, microphone/speaker/camera choices, and saved window positions on this machine, then quits the app. It does not touch macOS permissions; see Troubleshooting for exactly what it does and doesn’t clear.