"No BookingHQ found" when I point the app at the Booking HQ I built in the terminal

You click I’ve already started using Booked Solid, you point it to your "Booking HQ" directory on your computer, and the app tells you there is no booking work in there. On screen that reads I don’t see booking work there., and the only two buttons are Pick another folder and Start fresh instead. If you searched for "No BookingHQ found" to get here, that is the same wall. The folder is real. Your leads are in it, your notes are in it, and it still works fine every time you open it in the terminal. One performer sent this in word for word: “I have tried to install this app since I first joined, but it never installs. I click "I'm already using Booked Solid", then point it to my "Booking HQ" directory on my computer, and it says "No BookingHQ found". I've been using it through the terminal since I received it before Chris sold, and it still works fine.” If that is you, nothing is wrong with your Booking HQ. The app was looking for one file in one place, and your setup keeps that file somewhere else. This is fixed, and there is also a one-minute workaround that works on any build.

Why the app turned down a real Booking HQ

Before the app agrees that a folder is your Booking HQ, it looks for the profile file that every Booked Solid setup writes. On builds before 1.11.2 it accepted that profile in exactly one place: _config/profile.md, sitting directly inside the folder you picked. No file there, no Booking HQ, no matter how much real work the folder held.

Booking HQs built by the terminal version before the product changed hands (the Pearl era, the one you describe as before Chris sold) do not keep the profile there. They keep it at brain/profile.md, next to your voice, offers and wins notes. Their _config folder is empty. They also carry a large BOOKED-SOLID-BRAIN.md and a CLAUDE.md router at the top level. That is a genuine, fully worked booking department. It files its profile one folder over from where the app was checking, and that difference alone was enough to get it rejected. The gap was ours, not yours.

How to tell you have a pre-app terminal Booking HQ

Open your BookingHQ folder and look for all four of these:

• a profile.md inside the brain folder
• a large BOOKED-SOLID-BRAIN.md at the top level
• a _config folder that is empty
• a CLAUDE.md file at the top level

That combination is the pre-app terminal layout, and everything below is written for it.

Two dead ends, so you do not lose an afternoon to them

Almost everyone tries both of these first, and neither can work. Skip them.

Pointing the app at the brain subfolder. It is the obvious move once you find profile.md in there, and it fails every time. The app looks for the profile at _config/profile.md or brain/profile.md inside whatever folder you hand it, so picking brain sends it hunting for brain/brain/profile.md, which does not exist. It also wants one further Booked Solid fingerprint before it will call any folder a booking department, so a folder holding nothing but a profile is never adopted. Point at the parent folder, the one that has brain, leads and CLAUDE.md inside it.

Taking the start fresh offer. When the app cannot recognise a folder that clearly has things in it, the only two buttons it gives you are Pick another folder and Start fresh instead. Start fresh instead does not delete anything and does not touch the folder you picked, so if you already clicked it, your work is safe. But it does not import your work either. It walks you into a brand new empty department while your real one sits untouched on disk. Close the app rather than take that offer, and do one of the two fixes below.

Find the exact folder to point at

The app wants the top level of your Booking HQ, not its parent and not a subfolder. Confirm which folder that is before you open the picker.

1. In your terminal, go to the exact folder you cd into to start Booked Solid.
2. Run dir on Windows, or ls -la on Mac and Linux. You are looking for a _config folder plus the usual leads, stages and brain folders.
3. Look inside _config with dir _config or ls _config. On a current setup you will see profile.md there. On a pre-app terminal setup that folder will be empty, which is expected.
4. Whichever folder holds _config, brain, leads and CLAUDE.md directly inside it is the folder to point the app at.

The real fix: update to 1.11.2 or newer

Version 1.11.2 taught the app to read the terminal layout directly, and every build since carries it. Nothing to copy, nothing to rearrange.

1. Open Booked Solid and click Check for updates next to the logo, or download a fresh copy at booked.kivimedia.co/download.
2. Let it download and restart. If it reports you are already current but you are on an older build, see the article "The app is stuck on an old version or won't update".
3. Choose I’ve already started using Booked Solid. This is the door you may remember as "I'm already using Booked Solid", and it is the right one.
4. Click Find my Booking HQ and pick the top-level folder you identified above.
5. The app answers Found it. and names your folder and how many leads and saved notes it can see. Click Use this as my Booking HQ.

From 1.11.2 on, the app anchors on your profile at either _config/profile.md or brain/profile.md, and it accepts BOOKED-SOLID-BRAIN.md as one of the fingerprints that confirm a real department. A confirming fingerprint is still required on purpose, so a random folder that happens to contain a profile.md is never adopted as your business by mistake.

If you cannot update right now: the one-minute copy

This works on any build, including the one you have open at this moment.

1. Open your BookingHQ folder.
2. Copy brain\profile.md into the empty _config folder, so that you now also have _config\profile.md. Copy it. Do not move it. The terminal keeps reading the one in brain and the app reads the one in _config, and moving the file breaks the terminal.
3. Open the app and choose I’ve already started using Booked Solid, then Find my Booking HQ.
4. Point it at the top-level BookingHQ folder, the one with brain, leads and CLAUDE.md inside it. Not the brain subfolder.
5. It says Found it. and offers Use this as my Booking HQ. Say yes.

Once you are on 1.11.2 or newer you do not need that copy at all, and deleting it is the tidiest ending. If you would rather leave it, one thing is worth knowing: when both files exist, the app reads _config/profile.md first. So if you later change your profile from the terminal, which writes brain/profile.md, the app will keep showing the older copy until you refresh it or delete it.

What adopting the folder does, and what it does not do

This is the part that keeps people from clicking, so here it is plainly. Adoption points the app at your folder and stops there.

• Nothing is written inside your Booking HQ when you adopt it.
• Every lead, note and gig stays exactly where and as it is.
• Your terminal version keeps working the whole time, unchanged.
• You can keep using both doors on the same folder, on the same day. They read and write the same plain files.

Why "Pick up where you left off" never offered you your folder

The quiet scan the app runs at startup is deliberately narrow. It looks at the folder already saved in your settings and at folders in your home folder whose names begin with BookingHQ. It does not go digging through Desktop, Documents or Downloads, because on a Mac that would throw system permission prompts at you before you have seen a single screen.

So if your Booking HQ lives on your Desktop, inside OneDrive, or anywhere else off the home root, the app will not surface it on its own even on the newest build. That is not a sign it cannot read your folder. Use Find my Booking HQ and pick it yourself, or set it later from Settings > General > Your Booking HQ.

One thing to watch: a Booking HQ inside OneDrive

A terminal-era Booking HQ can easily end up somewhere like OneDrive\Desktop\BookingHQ. Reading it there in the app is fine and adoption will work. But if you ever see a message that a record or a stage change could not be saved, that is almost always OneDrive or antivirus holding the file open mid-write, not the app failing. The safe long-term home is a plain local folder outside any sync folder, and the article "Your Booking HQ folder: change it, find it, restore a backup, tune it up" walks through moving it and using the app's own backups instead.

If it still says there is no Booking HQ

Submit a ticket from this help center and include four things, which is everything needed to tell whether your layout is one we have not met yet:

• the top-level names you see from dir or ls -la in that folder
• whether _config/profile.md exists
• whether brain/profile.md exists
• the app version you are on

If your folder is a real Booking HQ that the app still will not take, that is a bug on our side and we will fix it in the app rather than ask you to rearrange your files.