Release history

Every version, and what changed in it

sideOS updates itself, so you are normally already on the newest build. Older releases are listed here for reference — they are no longer distributed, and only the current version can be downloaded.

0.9.3Current27 August 2026 · build 18
  • Required update: older installs show the update screen until this build is installed.
  • The licence screen now shows what the lifetime licence includes and its current price. The price is fetched live, so what you see before buying always matches what checkout charges.
  • Buying is one click from the locked screen: the button opens a secure Stripe checkout in your browser — no account to create.
  • The pricing card folds away from the header row and the app remembers your choice; the licence key field always stays visible.
Download 0.9.3Apple Silicon · macOS 14 or later
  1. 0.9.2Retired27 August 2026 · build 17
    • Required update: older builds spend several times more of your API budget per request than they need to, so every install is moved onto this one.
    • The assistant now reuses its own context between requests instead of re-sending it every time, and reading the screen after an action sends only what changed — up to 14× less data per step on the same page. A stuck run is also cut off much earlier, so a rare runaway loop can no longer burn through your credit.
    • Pressing Esc while a request was in flight with the chat box open could leave the island stuck busy; cancel now always resets it.
    • Meeting recording no longer touches the system's voice processing, which could lower other apps' volume and confuse the other side's echo cancellation during a live call. Echo copies are removed in the transcript instead, and long recordings are transcribed in chunks.
  2. 0.9.1Retired24 August 2026 · build 16
    • Required update: builds older than this one stop working, so older installs show the update screen until you install it. The change itself affects first-run setup only — if sideOS is already set up on your Mac, nothing about your day changes.
    • A new install now runs the setup tour first and asks for the licence key at the end of it. Until now the key was asked for first, which meant a new user was asked to buy before seeing anything work. Both practice steps of the tour work without a licence, so the tour can be finished before the key is entered.
    • The last page of the tour no longer says you are ready while the app is still locked; it says setup is complete and points at the one remaining step, in all 32 languages.
  3. 0.9.0Retired24 August 2026 · build 15
    • Required update: builds older than this one stop working, so older installs show the update screen until you install it.
    • Activation could fail on macOS 14 and 15 while reporting a network error, even though the key had been accepted — and repeating it could use up the activation allowance and leave the Mac locked out. Both sides are fixed; if you hit this, your key works again with nothing to request.
    • A new voice chat mode holds a spoken back-and-forth in one session instead of the dictate → answer → speak round trip, and stops to listen when you interrupt it. It reads the screen and takes screenshots but cannot click, type or run anything — the agent is unchanged and still does the work. It needs an OpenAI key and has to be switched on in Settings.
    • Dictated text now lands correctly in apps that build their accessibility tree lazily, Chrome and Electron apps among them, instead of going to the wrong place or nowhere.
    • Shell actions could write outside the working folder without asking, in a few forms that slipped past the check; those now require approval, and the approval prompt reads commands the way the shell does so harmless ones are no longer flagged as risky.
    • Fixes: a misbehaving MCP server no longer takes the app down with it, meeting recordings survive switching audio device mid-session, pressing the dictation shortcut rapidly no longer leaves listening stuck, and long agent runs that use web search no longer stall partway through.
  4. 0.8.0Retired23 August 2026 · build 14
    • Required update: builds older than this one stop working, so older installs show the update screen until you install it.
    • Moving to a new Mac is now one click. If your licence is active on a Mac you can't reach — sold, broken, wiped — activation offers Move to this Mac: the old machine is freed and this one unlocks, with no waiting period.
    • Your data can move too. Settings › App exports chats, tasks, reminders, memory and meetings as a single file; import it on the other Mac and sideOS restarts with everything in place. API keys and the licence stay in the Keychain and never enter the file.
    • Save and open dialogs could appear on another Space — invisible if you were in a full-screen app — which made sideOS look frozen. They now open attached to the island, on whichever screen you are actually looking at, and never block the app.
  5. 0.7.0Retired23 August 2026 · build 13
    • Required update: builds older than this one stop working, so older installs show the update screen until you install it.
    • Answers stream in word by word instead of appearing all at once — with every provider, including the on-device model. Spoken replies begin after the first sentence instead of the last, with macOS and cloud voices alike.
    • If the connection drops mid-answer, the text written so far stays on screen together with the error; momentary provider errors are retried quietly.
    • Screenshots capture the display your frontmost window is on, and the agent can be asked for a specific display. When you are offline, the island says so — and what still works — instead of failing with a generic error.
    • Meeting summaries can leave the app: copy as Markdown, or export as a Markdown or HTML file with the full transcript included.
    • Type an instruction like “summarize the tech news” as a reminder's title and sideOS understands it is a job to prepare.
    • sideOS can start at login (on by default), shortcuts got their own page, and unclassified MCP tools now start disabled — the safe default.
  6. 0.6.2Retired22 August 2026 · build 12
    • Required update: builds older than this one stop working, so older installs show the update screen until you install it.
    • Two ways a meeting recording could be lost are fixed. Quitting while recording left both audio files unreadable — an hour of audio gone, while the app called it fine. And on audio interfaces with more than two input channels the microphone track was silently empty.
    • Tighter approval for commands. Background tasks may write inside their own working folder without asking, but paths leading outside it — including ../ — were not being checked, so a command could overwrite a file elsewhere on the disk with no approval sheet. The sheet also stops cutting long commands off at five lines: you can scroll and read the whole thing before allowing it.
    • No more freezes. AppleScript ran on the main thread, so a slow script froze the whole interface including Escape; it now runs alongside. Connecting to a local MCP server for the first time could freeze the app for up to ten seconds, and a server that crashes is now noticed instead of showing as running.
    • Pressing the dictation or listening shortcut twice in quick succession could leave the microphone open or lose what you said.
    • Reminders behave. One set for a time that has already passed rings instead of going quiet, weekdays no longer fires at the weekend, a monthly reminder on the 29th–31st stops drifting to the 28th, and Complete cancels a pending snooze.
    • Long meetings use far less memory while separating speakers — a three-hour recording no longer needs most of a gigabyte. Turkish speaker labels and names with İ come out correctly.
  7. 0.6.1Retired17 August 2026 · build 11
    • Settings › Support has a box for telling us what went wrong. Write what happened, leave your email, press Send — the report reaches us with your version, macOS and the last part of the log attached, and we reply to the address you leave.
    • The old Write to us button stays as a fallback, for a screenshot or for carrying the conversation on in your own mail app.
  8. 0.6.0Retired17 August 2026 · build 10
    • Required update: builds older than this one stop working, so older installs show the update screen until you install it.
    • Clipboard history. Press Command Command then V for the last 20 things you copied — text, images, files from Finder — and pick one to paste where you were typing. Anything a password manager copies is skipped and never written to disk. The assistant can read and paste from it too.
    • Dictation writes while you speak instead of arriving all at once when you let go. What you dictate is also copied to the clipboard every time, so a field that swallows the text can never lose the sentence.
    • Hands-free on both shortcuts: tap Control Option (or Control fn) briefly and let go, and sideOS keeps listening. Return finishes and runs it, Esc cancels.
    • Anything that sends a message, an email or a post now waits three seconds in the notch first, naming where it is going. Esc stops it.
    • Reminders repeat on an interval you choose — every three days, every two weeks, every six months — by voice as well.
    • Reminders, Tasks, Meetings, Connections and Features were redrawn to look like one app, with dates written the way you would say them.
  9. 0.5.1Retired13 August 2026 · build 9
    • Housekeeping. Nothing you will notice — sideOS now tells us which version it is when it checks your licence, so we can keep everyone on a build that still works.
  10. 0.5.0Retired13 August 2026 · build 8
    • sideOS is now a paid app. A one-time licence unlocks it — paste the key under Settings › Licence.
    • One licence covers one Mac, and moves to a new one whenever you like: remove it on the old machine and it frees up straight away.
    • The licence is checked on your Mac, so a dropped connection never locks you out.
    • Settings › Support shows your version and install code for when you write in.
    • Update checks run every six hours instead of every three.
  11. 0.4.0Retired12 August 2026 · build 7
    • Anonymous usage counters, with a switch to turn them off in Settings › App.
    • Reminder alarms can be dismissed from the alert itself.
    • Downloads and updates now come from a CDN, so they arrive faster and resume cleanly.
  12. 0.3.0Retired12 August 2026 · build 6
    • OpenAI and Gemini join Anthropic as agent providers — each keeps its own key.
    • Live dictation: text appears as you speak instead of at the end.
    • An optional cloud speech engine for longer recordings and wider language support.
  13. 0.2.0Retired11 August 2026 · build 5
    • Reworked onboarding that explains each permission before macOS asks for it.
    • A built-in features guide.
    • Sharper screen control — fewer misread elements in web apps.
    • Slack connects through OAuth without registering your own app first.
  14. 0.1.2Retired10 August 2026 · build 4
    • Fixes to packaging and the update flow.
  15. 0.1.1Retired10 August 2026 · build 3
    • Fixes to packaging and the update flow.
  16. 0.1.0Retired9 August 2026 · build 2
    • First public release: the notch assistant, agent mode, and on-device dictation.

Retired builds are not available for download. If an update ever leaves you stuck, install the current version over the top — it keeps your settings, and your permissions stay granted.