Questions & answers

Click the Apple menu → About This Mac. If it says Chip: Apple M1 (or M2, M3, M4…), download the Apple silicon file. If it says Processor: … Intel, download the Intel one. (The Intel version will also run on an Apple silicon Mac, via Apple’s Rosetta, but the Apple silicon one is easier on your battery. The Apple silicon version won’t open on an Intel Mac.)

1. Open the .dmg file you downloaded.
2. Drag the pal into your Applications folder.
3. Open it from Applications (or Launchpad / Spotlight).

The first time, macOS may ask “… is an app downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?” – that’s the normal question for anything you download. Click Open.

No. The Mac versions are signed with WhiteFish Creative Limited’s Apple Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so Gatekeeper recognises them and lets them open. If you ever see a message saying the app is from an unidentified developer or “can’t be checked for malicious software”, don’t override it – you’ve got a file that didn’t come from this site. Download it again from here.

There’s nothing to install. Download the …-1.0.0-Portable.exe, put it wherever you like (your Desktop or Documents is fine), and double-click it whenever you want your pal. It takes a moment to start the first time, because it unpacks itself.

It needs 64-bit Windows 10 or 11.

Want pals to start with Windows, or several pals at once? That’s what PalPlayer is for – it has a proper installer and adds pals from small pal packs.

That’s Microsoft Defender SmartScreen. It appears because the Windows versions aren’t code-signed yet – a Windows signing certificate is a separate (and pricey) thing from the Apple one, and we haven’t got one. It doesn’t mean anything was found in the file.

To carry on, click More info, then Run anyway.

If you’d like to be sure the file is the one we built, compare its fingerprint with the one listed under the download buttons. In PowerShell: Get-FileHash Dot-1.0.0-Portable.exe – the long string should match exactly.

A standalone pal is built on Electron – the same framework behind lots of desktop apps – which brings its own copy of a web engine to draw and animate the character. That’s nearly all of the size: the pal itself is often under a megabyte. There’s nothing else hiding in there.

If you’d like more than one pal, get PalPlayer instead: it carries that engine once, and each pal after that is a small pal pack – Dot is under a megabyte.

It walks on near the bottom right of your main screen and says hello. It doesn’t have a Dock icon (Mac) or a taskbar button (Windows); instead there’s a small icon in the menu bar at the top of your Mac screen, or in the system tray by the Windows clock (click the ^ arrow if it’s hidden). Click that icon for the pal’s menu.

Right-click the pal (or click its menu bar / tray icon). From there you can make it talk now, stop it wandering, keep it quiet for 30 minutes, call it over to your mouse, switch the podcast feed on or off, choose light or dark, change the sound (Creatures pals), add or swap Creatures, and see its About box.

Right-click it and choose Quiet for 30 minutes, and untick Let … wander so it stays put. Pals sit on top of your other windows (including full-screen apps on a Mac), so for a big presentation the simplest thing is to close it and open it again afterwards.

Dot and The Cynical Developer are silent – everything they say is in the speech bubble. The Norns, Grendels and Ettins make the original Creatures 2 sounds: babbling, giggles, sneezes, snores. Click the 🔊 on any creature to mute them all, or use the Sound menu for volume and quiet hours.

No – it only runs when you open it. If you want it every morning, add it yourself: on a Mac, System Settings → General → Login Items → +; on Windows, press Win+R, type shell:startup and put a shortcut to the pal in that folder.

Yes. The Creatures pals never go online anyway. Dot and The Cynical Developer just won’t mention new episodes until you’re connected again.

No – Desktop Pals are made by WhiteFish Creative and aren’t connected with Microsoft or its Office Assistant. They’re very much inspired by that era, though. And they’re a lot less keen on helping you write a letter.

Right-click the pal (or click its menu bar / tray icon) and choose Close …. You can also press ⌘Q / AltF4 while it’s selected, or click the × that appears when you hover over it.

Your pal will slide in from the side of the screen and ask if you’re sure. Click Yes, close … and it says goodbye and quits completely – nothing keeps running. (Press Esc or the other button if you’ve changed your mind.)

With several Creatures on screen, the × sends just that one home; closing the last one brings up the plea.

It will – the plea is a joke, and Yes, close always works. If something’s gone wrong and it isn’t responding, you can force it: Mac – open Activity Monitor, find the pal, and click the ⊗ (Stop) button, then Force Quit. Windows – press CtrlShiftEsc for Task Manager, pick the pal and click End task.

Mac

1. Close the pal.
2. Drag it from your Applications folder to the Bin.
3. Optional – to remove its settings too: in Finder choose Go → Go to Folder…, type ~/Library/Application Support/ and move the folder whose name starts with DesktopPals- to the Bin.

Windows

1. Close the pal.
2. Delete its .exe.
3. Optional – to remove its settings too: press Win+R, type %APPDATA%, and delete the folder whose name starts with DesktopPals-.

PalPlayer

To remove one pal, choose Remove on its card in PalPlayer’s Library. To remove PalPlayer and every pal in it: on a Mac, drag PalPlayer to the Bin; on Windows, Settings → Apps → Installed apps → PalPlayer → Uninstall; on Linux, delete the AppImage.

That’s everything – there are no background services, browser extensions or leftovers anywhere else.

In a small folder on your computer whose name starts with DesktopPals-:

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/
• Windows: %APPDATA% (usually C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\)

Inside, prefs.json holds your choices (appearance, sound, which Creatures you’ve picked) and feeds.json remembers which episodes your pal has already mentioned. The rest is Electron’s own housekeeping. None of it leaves your computer. Delete the folder and the pal starts fresh.

No. No accounts, no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reports, nothing uploaded. The only thing any pal fetches from the internet is a public podcast feed (Dot and The Cynical Developer only). The full, specific version is on the Safe & honest page, and in our privacy policy.

No and no. It draws a little character about 30 times a second and says something every minute or two. That’s the job.

No – it’s a drawing of a microphone. None of the pals ask for (or could use) your microphone or camera.