Otto says it doesn't have permission to open your browser on a Mac: the two halves you both need

You moved over to the desktop app, asked Otto to go and look at some gig sites, and hit a wall instead: After starting to use the desktop app on my Mac, I can no longer get Otto to open my browser to scan gig lead sites. It says it doesn't have permission. I turned on all the settings I'm aware of. How do I fix this? The line about turning on all the settings you are aware of is the one that matters. On a Mac there are two completely separate things that both have to be true before Otto can drive a browser, and they live in two different parts of the app. Turning on everything you can find in one place, and nothing in the other, produces exactly this message.

The two halves, and why turning on all the settings you are aware of is not enough

Half one is inside Booked Solid: browser control is a connection, and it stays switched off until you switch it on. Half two is macOS itself: Accessibility and Screen Recording, the two system permissions that let Otto click, type, and see your screen. Two people can land on this same doesn't have permission message for opposite reasons, so if your version of it is I can't get Otto to open my browser to scan gig lead sites, work through both halves rather than only the one that sounds like your message. Then read the last section on open chats, because it is the reason a correct setup can still look broken.

Half one: switch browser control on

Do this one first. It is the half most people never touch, because nothing about a permission message suggests there is a switch anywhere.

1. Open the Connections tab. It is its own tab in the More dropdown at the top, not a page inside Settings.
2. Find the Tool access section.
3. Switch on Web browsing (Chrome), or Web browsing (Safari) if you would rather Otto read the Safari you already have open. Read the Safari section below before you pick it.
4. The Browser control row then reads as ready for Otto to use.

There is a shortcut if you are already in chat: typing I allow web browsing switches browsing on for you on the spot, and the app confirms it in the chat. Computer control never works that way, because mouse and keyboard reach always gets a deliberate tap on an Approve button.

Two things you may have read elsewhere that are no longer true. Web browsing (Chrome) used to refuse to turn on unless you had installed the free Node.js tool yourself. Since version 1.7.20 the browser tool ships inside the app and runs on the app's own runtime, so there is nothing to install. And if this Mac has no Chrome at all, since version 1.11.8 browsing works with Microsoft Edge instead.

Half two: Accessibility and Screen Recording

These are the two macOS permissions the app cannot grant for you. Accessibility lets Otto click and type. Screen Recording lets Otto see what is on your screen. They are what Control this computer runs on, and they are what the option Web tasks use my own browser runs on, because that option makes Otto work inside the everyday Chrome you are already signed in to rather than the app's own separate window.

1. Open the Settings tab in the right-hand pane.
2. Switch to the Permissions sub-tab, which sits next to General.
3. Look at the Computer permissions box at the top. A granted permission shows a checkmark and the word Granted. Anything else is not granted, whatever System Settings looks like.
4. If the Accessibility or Screen Recording row shows an Allow or Open Settings button instead, click it. macOS opens on the right pane by itself.
5. For Accessibility that pane is System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. Switch Booked Solid on there.
6. For Screen Recording it is System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording. Switch Booked Solid on there too.
7. Now click back into the Booked Solid window. This step is not decoration. The app re-reads the permissions when it comes to the front, and that is also the moment the rest of the app is told the permission exists. Grant it in System Settings and never return to the app window, and control can keep being refused.
8. Confirm the row now shows a checkmark. If it still does not, switch Booked Solid off and back on in that System Settings list, then return to the app again.

The modal that appears mid-task: never click Not now

When a job needs one of these and it is missing, a box appears before anything runs, headed This task requires Accessibility permission or This task requires Screen Recording permission. It has two buttons. One grants it: in current versions it reads Allow it now, and in builds before 1.7.4 it read Request permission. The other is Not now, and it declines. Click the granting button. Clicking Not now only closes the box without granting anything, so the request that raised it does not go ahead and asking again raises the same box. This is the single most common way people re-create the failure they were trying to fix.

If your build is older than 1.7.4, that alone explains the message

There was a real bug here, and it is very likely the one you met if you set this up in early July. Builds before 1.7.4 demanded the computer-control permission on any request that merely mentioned a browser, even though the app's own browsing window drives itself and needs neither Accessibility nor Screen Recording. So you would ask Otto to scan gig lead sites, be told it doesn't have permission, grant every permission on the list, and get told the same thing again. Version 1.7.4, released on 12 July 2026, narrowed that check so it guards only real mouse and keyboard control. Update the app. Anything in the 1.11 line is well past it.

This is also why the honest answer to which permission fixes browser control is: on a current build, neither of them, on their own. Accessibility and Screen Recording are still worth granting, and you need them the moment you use Control this computer or Web tasks use my own browser. They are not what switches browser control on.

Advanced: a browser server you already have from another app

Booked Solid can find browser tools that some other app on your computer already has configured. Seeing one listed does not mean Otto can use it, and this catches people out.

• The app only recognises a server as a browser when its id or label contains playwright, browser, or chrome.
• It must be adopted into Booked Solid, not merely discovered. On the Connections tab, open Discover integrations and click Add on that server. Its launch configuration is then stored here, encrypted.
• It must still be enabled afterwards.
• Anything you add this way starts read-only, which is enough to open and read a page. Reading is all that scanning a lead site needs. If you later want it to do more, widen it on Settings > Permissions.

Safari is read-only, and for gig lead sites that usually matters

Web browsing (Safari) is Mac only and it can read. That is the whole of it. There is no click, no typing, no form, no upload tool in it at all. It looks at pages already open in your Safari or Safari Technology Preview and can open an address to read. If all you want is for Otto to read a venue page or a lead's event listing, Safari is fine. If your task has to interact with the site in any way, you need Chrome, or Edge on a machine without Chrome. Safari also asks macOS for permission the first time it runs, which you allow under System Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation.

The trap after both halves: an open chat keeps the browser it started with

This one costs people a whole afternoon. Which tools a conversation has are decided when that conversation starts. Flip a switch on the Connections tab while Otto is mid-chat and that chat carries on exactly as before, with the tools it was born with. Everything you changed reaches your next chat, not the one you are looking at. So after you finish half one and half two, start a new chat and ask again. If Otto has just opened the wrong browser, or no browser, that is the first thing to try.

Browser control is not an email replacement

Worth saying before you spend more time here. Browser control is not required for email work and is not a substitute for it. Email runs through the account you added under Connections > Mail & calendars. Drafts land in that account's own Drafts folder, sending always stays with you, and anything a browser task tries to submit, upload, or post waits for your approval as well. Adding a browser does not fix an email problem.

If it still does not work

Go down this list in order and stop at the first thing that is not true.

1. You are on version 1.7.4 or newer, ideally the current 1.11 line.
2. Web browsing (Chrome) or Web browsing (Safari) is actually switched on under Tool access on the Connections tab. A switched-off tool counts as unavailable, and Otto will say so.
3. You started a fresh chat after switching it on.
4. On Settings > Permissions, both Accessibility and Screen Recording show a checkmark, not an Allow or Open Settings button. You clicked back into the app window after granting them.
5. You clicked Allow it now, never Not now, on any This task requires box.
6. If you used Web tasks use my own browser: Control this computer is switched on, and it is set to allow actions on the Permissions tab rather than left read-only. Read-only means Otto can see your browser but never click in it.
7. If you went the adopted-server route: the server's id or label contains playwright, browser or chrome, you clicked Add rather than only seeing it in discovery, and it is still enabled.
8. If your task needs to fill anything in, you are on Chrome or Edge and not Safari.

Still stuck?

Email bookedsolid@kivimedia.freshdesk.com and a person will help. Tell us your app version, which of the two halves you have completed, and whether the message you see is the doesn't have permission box or Otto saying in chat that browser control is not available. Those two point at different halves, and knowing which one you got saves a round of back and forth.