How-to · anyone who works out of webmail
The side panel for Gmail and Outlook
Overview
The extension puts CaseLoop in a side panel next to your inbox. It is for the moment you are reading an email and the next thing you need is a note, an attachment filed, or a reply — without switching windows and losing the thread.
The panel is a window onto CaseLoop Desktop running on the same computer. It holds no data of its own and has no account of its own.
If CaseLoop is closed, the panel cannot do anything and says so. This is the single most common reason it appears broken.
The panel talks to your machine, and your machine talks to your practice system. Your mail is not sent to CaseLoop’s servers.
The extension is optional. Everything it does can also be done in the desktop app; it exists to save you the trip when you are already in your inbox.
Setting it up
One click, free, and no account to create — it signs in through the desktop app.
Do this first, every time. The panel is a client for the desktop app — with CaseLoop closed it can show you nothing, and it will say “Unable to connect to Caseloop desktop app.”
Go to Gmail or Outlook, then click the CaseLoop icon in Chrome’s toolbar. The panel opens down the side of the window, beside the message you are reading.
Several actions act on the currently open message — its attachments, its thread. Open the email first, then act in the panel.
If the CaseLoop icon is not in your toolbar, click the puzzle piece (Extensions) at the top right of Chrome, find CaseLoop, and click the pin. It then stays visible.
No puzzle piece either? Three-dot menu (⋮) → Extensions → Manage Extensions, and look for CaseLoop there.
Chrome asks the first time you record. If voice features do nothing afterwards, Chrome is blocking the microphone and you have to allow it by hand — Chrome does not let a page link you to its own settings, so this is copy-and-paste.
Copy the whole line below, paste it into a new Chrome tab and press Enter. Find the Microphone row, set it to Allow, then close that tab and reopen the CaseLoop panel.
| Paste into a new tab | chrome://settings/content/siteDetails?site=chrome-extension://alklhcbmnpdabhphnfieojpibhhdlbpa |
This is a Chrome security policy, not a CaseLoop limitation. The panel also shows its own version of these steps when it detects the block.
What it does
Search your clients under People. Picking someone gives you their record and the actions below, so the usual rhythm is: open the email, find the person, act.
Start Recording, talk, End Recording. The audio is transcribed on your own computer by the desktop app — it is not sent to a transcription service — and the text lands on the client’s record.
Review email thread shows what it captured from the message you have open, and asks where it should go before it writes anything:
| Destination | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Notes | The default. The running record of what happened on the case. |
| Today's Focus | When the email is what the next person working this case needs to see first. |
Add Attachments to Case uploads the files on the open email into the client’s record. It takes the attachments on the active email, not everything visible on the page — which is the behaviour you want on a long thread.
Compose Email drafts with the case context already in hand. Multiple recipients are separated with commas. You review it before anything sends.
Create New Client adds them without leaving the inbox — for the referral that arrives before the record does.
Notes, attachments and email threads go into the family’s real record, and those systems generally have no delete. Check you have the right person selected before you file — the panel shows who is selected precisely so this is checkable.
Privacy
The panel reads the email you have open and talks to CaseLoop Desktop on localhost — your own computer. It does not send your mail to CaseLoop’s servers.
Dictation is transcribed locally by the same on-device model the desktop app uses. No audio goes to a cloud transcription service.
What you deliberately file — a note, a thread, an attachment — goes to your practice system, the same as it would from the desktop app. Full detail in Where your data lives.
Troubleshooting
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| “Unable to connect to Caseloop desktop app.” | CaseLoop Desktop is not running, or not running on this computer. Open it, sign in, then close and reopen the panel. This is the first thing to check for any “nothing works” report. |
| “CaseLoop session expired — re-login to the desktop app.” | Sign in again in the desktop app. The panel has no sign-in of its own; fixing it there fixes it here. |
| “Log into CaseLoop desktop to enable HOVI sync.” | Same cause, specific to filing. Nothing was written — sign in and try again. |
| “Could not reach HOVI. Check your connection.” | A network problem between your machine and your practice system, not a CaseLoop one. Try again in a moment; if it persists, check whether that system is reachable in a browser tab. |
| “Microphone access blocked.” | Chrome is refusing, not CaseLoop. The panel gives you the exact recipe: open chrome://settings/content/microphone in a new tab, click Add next to Allow, add chrome-extension://*, then reload the extension. Step 4 above has the per-extension version of the same fix, which is the narrower one to reach for first. |
| The microphone is set to Allow but voice still does nothing. | Something else may be holding the microphone exclusively — a meeting app is the usual culprit. Close it, then close and reopen the CaseLoop panel. If it still does not respond, quit Chrome entirely and start it again. |
| The CaseLoop icon is missing from the toolbar. | Click the puzzle piece at the top right, find CaseLoop, click the pin. If CaseLoop is not in that list at all, see the next row. |
| “Your profile is managed by [your organisation]” on the Extensions page. | Your IT team controls which extensions Chrome may install, and CaseLoop is not on their list yet. Ask them to allowlist it — send them the Web Store link above. Nothing you can change on your own machine will get around this, by design. |
| The panel does not open at all. | It only opens on Gmail and Outlook tabs. On any other site there is nothing for it to attach to. |
| It acted on the wrong email. | It reads the currently open message. If you were on a list view or a different thread, open the right email first and repeat the action. |
| Outlook stopped working after a Microsoft change. | Microsoft moves Outlook’s web addresses periodically, and the extension has to be updated to follow. Make sure Chrome has the latest version, then tell us — this one is on us to fix, not you. |
| Your inbox is not Gmail or Outlook. | Only those two are supported. Use the desktop app’s own Email page instead — Email, day to day. |
If you spend your day in your inbox, the panel is where the note and the filing happen. If you spend it in CaseLoop, you will not miss it.