Beam desktop v0.7.0 — fixes tray-idle freeze, points at the new /app URL

Important if you already have Beam installed: the live relay's root URL now serves beamlot.com's marketing homepage instead of the pairing app (see the web-client changes in this repo's history) — any build older than this one is currently loading the wrong page. Update to get the app back.

Fixes

• Stale/frozen window after sitting in the tray a long time: root-caused to the SSE connection silently going dead (no error, no retry) after the machine sleeps or the window sits hidden a while. The app now rechecks its connection the instant the window is shown from the tray or the system wakes from sleep, instead of needing a full quit-and-relaunch to recover.
• Points at /app instead of the bare root, matching the relay's new routing (root is now the marketing homepage; the pairing app moved to /app).

Beam desktop v0.6.1 — Consumer-readiness pass

• File uploads now checked against real magic bytes after upload, not just the client's self-reported content type -- rejects a non-image file spoofed as an allowed image format.
• Removed leftover personal identifiers from the installer's metadata (publisher, app ID, author) -- Windows/uninstall entries now show "Beam" consistently.
• Rate limiting config in production is now explicit (was silently falling back to a default via a stale env var name).
• Docs cleaned up: the README now has an actual "Download Beam" section with only the official GitHub Releases link, and deployment docs match what's actually running in production (Fly.io) instead of a long-abandoned Render setup.

Beam desktop v0.6.0 — Cleaner UI, rate limit fixed for real, resizing window

• Removed all emojis, the header logo, and the tagline from the UI — cleaner, less "AI demo" looking.
• Replaced the "live" text/dot connection indicator with a wifi-signal-style bars icon.
• Fixed the root cause of the rate-limit errors during testing: the connect screen's 2-second status polling was sharing a bucket with the actual pairing actions, so just leaving the screen open could trip it. They're now on separate limits.
• The desktop window opens small and grows with an animation once you press Connect to Beam, instead of always being full-size.

Beam desktop v0.5.0 — Unified Connect flow, new icon

What changed

• No more choosing "Send" or "Receive" up front — one "⚡ Connect to Beam" button shows your own QR code, a code-entry field, and the camera scanner all at once. Whichever side completes the pairing first wins.
• A real pairing confirmation animation (a violet checkmark with a pop + expanding ring) instead of an easy-to-miss status line.
• Restored auto-copy-to-clipboard when a link arrives live — this was in earlier versions of the app and got dropped in a rewrite. Back now, using Electron's native clipboard for reliability.
• "Or send a link/text instead" is now a visible bordered box instead of a barely-visible text link.
• New app icon — the round violet Beam mark, everywhere (window, taskbar, and the installer/exe itself).

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.

Beam desktop v0.4.5 — Rate limit actually fixed

What changed

Fixed "Couldn't start: Too many requests" for real this time. Two earlier attempts just raised the cap (5/hour → 30/hour → 120/hour) and it kept happening anyway — the actual problem was the 1-hour window: once you hit the limit, you were locked out for up to a full hour. Switched to a 10-minute window with a 200 request cap, so it's both much harder to hit and, if it happens anyway, clears in minutes instead of up to an hour.

No desktop code changes — the app always loads the live relay page, so it already has this fix with no update strictly required. This release exists as a clean version marker matching the server-side fix.

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.

Beam desktop v0.4.4

What changed

No desktop code changes in this release — the app always loads the live relay page, so it already picks up server-side fixes automatically. This version bump matches the relay's latest fix: the "Start" rate limit was raised again (30/hour was still too easy to hit during normal use/testing, now 120/hour).

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.

Beam desktop v0.4.3 — Remove broken camera QR scan from the app

What changed

Removed the "Scan QR with camera" button from the desktop app — the packaged Electron shell doesn't have camera permissions set up the way a real browser does, so it didn't work there. Manual pairing code entry still works exactly as before. The camera scanner stays available when using Beam in an actual web browser (desktop or mobile).

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.

Beam desktop v0.4.2 — Refresh fix, no more echo, QR camera scan

What changed

• Fixed a real bug where refreshing the page mid-session (e.g. your phone) could wipe out an active connection.
• Rate-limit errors during heavy testing now show a readable message instead of crashing with a JSON parse error.
• The sender no longer sees their own sent item echoed back into their own Received tab — the confirmation message now clearly states what was actually sent.
• Added an in-browser QR scanner (camera-based) as an alternative to the OS camera app, useful especially on a PC with a webcam but no "scan this" system feature.

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.

Beam desktop v0.4.1 — Send/Receive redesign, no more menu bar

What changed

• Landing screen now leads with two clear choices, Send and Receive, instead of one generic "Start" button — matches how AirDrop/Nearby Share/Snapdrop frame the same decision.
• Sending a photo is now the primary action: drag-and-drop, click to choose, or paste from your clipboard, with a live preview before it goes. Sending a link/text is still there, just tucked under a small toggle instead of sitting above the photo option.
• The paired session opens on whichever tab matches your original intent (tapped Send -> Send tab; tapped Receive -> Receive tab).
• Removed the default Windows File/Edit/View/Window/Help menu bar from the desktop app — it never did anything useful and didn't match the rest of the design.

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.

Beam desktop v0.4.0 — Ephemeral 2-device pairing

What changed

Beam is now a genuinely ephemeral, no-account, 2-device pairing tool instead of a persistent multi-device/friends system:

• No more accounts, friend connections, or admin panel — pairing is exactly two devices.
• Scanning a QR (or opening the pairing link) joins instantly — no separate "Pair" click needed.
• Once paired, the session runs for exactly 2 minutes, then the relay deletes everything about it: items, devices, uploaded files, all of it.
• Both devices can Send and Receive freely during the session — nothing locks either side into one role.
• The desktop app now just opens the same page a phone gets, kept always in sync with the web experience.

Note on this release

A parallel effort building this had a serious bug: the database migration needed to support the new model was missing, and once found and fixed, a second issue surfaced where old friend-shared data could crash the relay's background cleanup. Both were caught, fixed, tested, and verified live before this release went out — see the commit history on GitHub for the full detail if you're curious.

Download

Beam-Setup-Windows.exe is the stable link — always resolves to the latest release.