Frequently Asked Questions

Meow is a native desktop SIP softphone built with Qt 6 and PJSIP. It makes and receives voice calls over any standard SIP provider or PBX. It is a voice client, with no video calling and no instant messaging.

Yes. Meow is a SIP client, so you need an account from a provider or your own PBX (FreePBX, Asterisk and similar). Your provider gives you a server address, username and password. If your provider issues a separate authentication ID, as iWay accounts do, there is a field for it.

Yes. Meow includes a 14-day free trial with full functionality, and no credit card is required. The trial starts the first time the app contacts our server.

Windows, and Linux on Ubuntu 22.04 or newer, Linux Mint 21+, Fedora 36+, Debian 12+ and Arch Linux. Older Linux releases are refused at startup rather than failing later in a confusing way. On Linux both Wayland and X11 sessions are supported, with Wayland the primary target. There is no macOS build, and the Android port is unfinished and not shipped.

Yes. You can hold one call and take another, swap between them, merge them into a three-way conference, drop a single participant, or end one and resume the other. Three calls can exist at once, counting anything ringing.

Yes. Blind transfer to any number or extension, from the Transfer button during a call. A conference cannot be transferred, since that is two separate parties rather than one.

Yes. Recording is started and stopped from the call screen, and recordings are listed in the app. There is also an option to record every call automatically. Check your local law before recording: in many places you must tell the other party.

Yes, where your provider offers it. Numbers are managed per line in Settings, each registers separately so any of them can receive calls, and you choose which number places an outgoing call. The call log records which of your numbers carried each call.

Both. Call forwarding sends incoming calls to another number after a delay you set. The presence control offers Busy, which queues callers silently without ringing, and Do Not Disturb, which declines them. There is also auto-answer with a configurable delay.

Yes. Meow registers up to two lines simultaneously and shows the status of each. You choose which line places a call, or set one as the default.

On Windows, Meow uses WASAPI and follows the Windows “Default Communications Device”, so a headset plugged in mid-session is picked up. On Linux it uses the PulseAudio client API against PipeWire's PulseAudio server, which requires PipeWire 0.3.50 or newer. PipeWire is standard on all supported distributions.

Yes. Input, output and ringtone devices are chosen separately in Settings, and connected devices appear in those lists. Your choice is remembered by device name rather than by port, so it survives being unplugged and reconnected.

The most common cause is the microphone: if the device Meow was told to use is unplugged, the call connects but carries no audio, and Meow will name the missing device. Pick another in Settings, or reconnect it. If the microphone is fine and audio is missing in one direction only, that is usually the PBX advertising a private media address; Meow corrects the common case of this automatically. Otherwise check that your PBX allows RTP traffic, commonly ports 10000-20000.

No. Meow opens the microphone when a call starts and releases it a few seconds after the last one ends, so the recording indicator on your system only shows while you are actually on a call.

Any standards-compliant SIP server, including FreePBX, Asterisk, 3CX, FusionPBX, Kamailio and OpenSIPS, whether on your own hardware or cloud-hosted. UDP, TCP and TLS transports are all supported.

Yes. Media is encrypted with SRTP whenever the other end offers it, and unencrypted otherwise so a call never simply fails. The call screen tells you which you got: “Encrypted call” means both signalling and media are protected, “Encrypted audio” means the media is but the signalling is not. For encrypted signalling, configure the account with TLS transport.

Yes, and in the normal case there is nothing to configure. Meow keeps its connection alive so the PBX can reach it, and corrects the common misconfiguration where a PBX advertises a private media address that no external client could reach.

On your computer. Contacts, call history, recordings and settings live in a local database, and account passwords are stored encrypted. The only things sent to us are what licensing needs: an anonymous device fingerprint, your licence key, and the app version.

Each licence key is tied to one computer by a hardware fingerprint. Activate the key in Settings under Licence. The licence re-validates online periodically and keeps working offline for up to 7 days.

Meow stops registering with your PBX and stops making and receiving calls, and asks for a licence key. Your accounts, contacts, call history and settings are all kept, and everything resumes as soon as a valid key is entered.

Yes. Deactivate it on the old machine first, which frees the licence, then activate on the new one. If the old machine is gone or will not start, contact support and we will release it for you.

Changing hardware can change the fingerprint a licence is tied to. Docks and USB network adapters used to be enough to do this; from version 0.6.8 they are ignored, so docking or undocking no longer affects your licence. Upgrading to 0.6.8 may ask for activation once more on affected machines, and then stop asking. If it keeps happening, contact support.