Syft Notes 0.23.7

This release has everything from 0.23.6 too (it was out for only a few minutes): adding a recording you already have, the new Study page and dark mode.

Changes

• Add a lecture from a recording you already have. A voice memo, a Zoom or Teams recording, a podcast, or a video of the lecture (.m4a, .mp3, .wav, .mp4, .mov and more) becomes a lecture like any you record: written down on your computer, then your AI writes the notes, and you can ask about it and study it. Press Add a recording beside Record (or use Record's small menu), or drop the file on Home or a class's page. Pick the class (or let the library sort it) and the day it happened. For a video only the sound is used, and your file is never moved or changed.
• A clearer Study page. Review is one card: how many cards are due, Start, and each class's cards as a small pill (click one to review just that class). Your exams are one list, each on its date with its class, how soon it is and your last practice-test score, and one button: Prep for it or Open prep. Another exam is one row: pick the class from a menu, type the exam's name, Write the prep.
• Dark mode looks as good as light. Cards stand out from the page, the sidebar is a step darker, edges show, and class colours are the same bright highlighters as in light, with dark words on them.

Fixes

• Buttons, cards and fields have clean, whole edges. Some lost an edge or a corner (the class buttons on Study did).
• Text fields match the rest of the app, with the same rounded corners and colours, in light and dark.
• A button you can't press yet looks it, a quiet grey instead of a faded copy of the main button.

Good to know

• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.

• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

• A long video takes a while to be written down, and a lecture you record meanwhile waits until it's done.

• Windows: this update downloads in full (about 140 MB) rather than as a small update.

Syft Notes 0.23.6

Changes

• Add a lecture from a recording you already have. A voice memo, a Zoom or Teams recording, a podcast, or a video of the lecture (.m4a, .mp3, .wav, .mp4, .mov and more) becomes a lecture like any you record: written down on your computer, then your AI writes the notes, and you can ask about it and study it. Press Add a recording beside Record (or use Record's small menu), or drop the file on Home or a class's page. Pick the class (or let the library sort it) and the day it happened. For a video only the sound is used, and your file is never moved or changed.
• A clearer Study page. Review is one card: how many cards are due, Start, and each class's cards as a small pill (click one to review just that class). Your exams are one list, each on its date with its class, how soon it is and your last practice-test score, and one button: Prep for it or Open prep. Another exam is one row: pick the class from a menu, type the exam's name, Write the prep.
• Dark mode looks as good as light. Cards stand out from the page, the sidebar is a step darker, edges show, and class colours are the same bright highlighters as in light, with dark words on them.

Fixes

• Buttons, cards and fields have clean, whole edges. Some lost an edge or a corner (the class buttons on Study did).
• Text fields match the rest of the app, with the same rounded corners and colours, in light and dark.
• A button you can't press yet looks it, a quiet grey instead of a faded copy of the main button.

Good to know

• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.

• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

• A long video takes a while to be written down, and a lecture you record meanwhile waits until it's done.

• Windows: this update downloads in full (about 140 MB) rather than as a small update.

Syft Notes 0.23.5

Fixes

• On a Mac, your library starts even when an older copy of Syft Notes is still holding it. You used to see "Restart this Mac, then try again". Syft Notes now asks the older copy to close and starts the library itself. It never forces an older copy closed while it's recording, transcribing or sending a lecture, and no notes, recordings or transcripts are touched.
• Your past notes come back after an update or a fresh install. If your Syft Notes folder from before is still there (also when OneDrive or iCloud brings it back on a new laptop), every lecture in it shows up again. If you have exactly one earlier folder, its notes are copied in for you; Syft Notes only asks when there's a real choice. Notes from the oldest versions and renamed folders are found too. Nothing is moved or deleted: notes are copied, and if two copies of a lecture differ, both are kept.
• On a Mac, opening the new version from the download replaces an older one that's running, so you're offered the move into Applications and get the new version, not the old one.
• On a Mac, Syft Notes no longer crashes if it starts while the screen is asleep (after an overnight update, or at login with the monitor off). It waits for the screen to wake, then opens.
• Connecting Claude or ChatGPT works the first time. If the app is open, Syft Notes asks you to close it first, with one button that closes it, connects, and opens it again. Before, an open Claude or ChatGPT could quietly undo the connection.
• Claude no longer says "No executable file at …Study Stash.app". Since Syft Notes got its new name, Claude was still looking for the old app. Syft Notes now puts that right by itself (or asks you to close Claude first if it's open).
• Quitting while recording asks first (⌘Q, the Dock, the menu bar), and Keep recording carries on.
• A long recording that heard nothing says so, instead of "too short for notes", and a muted microphone points you to Sound → Input.
• Removing a class asks first and moves its lectures to Unsorted.
• Setup no longer waits forever at the Canvas step when the browser add-on came from an earlier install.
• Mac updates are small again. 0.23.4 made every Mac download the whole app.

Changes

• Mark a missing assignment as done. On an assignment you didn't hand in through Canvas, press Mark as done: it shows as "Marked done" and no longer counts as something to hand in. It's only in Syft Notes; nothing changes in Canvas. Undo puts it back.
• Buttons show a clean rounded outline when you move between them with the keyboard.
• A lecture's title shows you can rename it: a grey wash when you point at it, a ring while you type.
• "Enjoying Syft Notes? Buy us a coffee" is a small popup now, not a card on Home.
• The Canvas add-on's folder is made only if you load the add-on from a folder.

Good to know

• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.

• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

• Windows: this update downloads in full (about 140 MB) rather than as a small update.

Syft Notes 0.23.4

Fixes

• On a Mac, moving Syft Notes into Applications works properly. A copy moved there from the download kept a "downloaded from the internet" mark, so it asked to move again every time it opened and couldn't update itself. It no longer does, and a copy that already has the mark is healed the next time it moves. Moving never replaces a newer copy with an older one, and the download disk is ejected afterwards.
• An older copy of Syft Notes kept somewhere else no longer starts when you log in. A copy left in Downloads, a second Applications folder or a "Syft Notes 2" now hands everything (start at login, the background library, your AI apps' connections) to the newest copy.
• Updates arrive even if your laptop sleeps a lot. Syft Notes looks for a new version by the clock, not by how long the laptop has been awake.
• A lecture that's waiting to be written down no longer holds updates back. If the speech model was missing, updates could wait forever.
• No update or move while setup is open, so setup is never restarted in the middle.
• On Windows, "Open Syft Notes when you log in" stays on after you reinstall.
• On Windows, opening an older installer when Syft Notes is already installed opens your copy instead of making a second one.
• Setup's step counter counts correctly when your school doesn't use Canvas.

Good to know

• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

Syft Notes 0.23.3

Fixes

• On a Mac, opening the Syft Notes download works again. Since 0.20.0, opening the downloaded Syft-Notes.dmg showed no window, and on recent macOS Finder could quit. The disk image is now made the standard way.
• Two Syft Notes folders become one. If your notes ended up in two Syft Notes folders (for example an old OneDrive and a school OneDrive), Syft Notes asks which one to keep and copies the other folder's notes into it. Nothing is deleted, and where two copies of a lecture differ, both are kept.
• Signing in to Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini never moves notes off the AI on your computer. If you set your notes or Ask to the free AI on this computer, signing in to another AI leaves that choice as it is.
• The free AI on your computer picks a size that fits it, and its problems are explained in plain words in Ask.
• Canvas class pages keep your place when Canvas syncs: an open week stays open, and a list that couldn't load doesn't empty the rest of the page.
• Back and Forward return you to where you were scrolled.
• Quick search starts at the top of each new set of results, and on Windows in dark mode the chosen result is easy to read.
• Phone photos open without freezing the window.
• On Windows, Due dates are no longer cut off.
• On a Mac, the part that answers your phone with the app closed waits for a moment if another copy is still finishing, instead of stopping.

Good to know

• If you downloaded Syft Notes for Mac before 0.23.3 and its window never appeared, delete that download and download Syft Notes again: the new download opens properly. If the window still seems missing, it may have opened behind your browser.
• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

Syft Notes 0.23.2

Fixes

• After an update, Syft Notes comes back the way you left it. If its window was open when an update installs, the window opens again (before, the app came back only in the menu bar or the tray). This starts with the update after this one: the update to 0.23.2 itself still comes back in the menu bar or the tray.
• The AI you sign in to writes your notes. Sign in to Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini, and that AI writes your notes and answers your questions from then on. You don't need to change it in Settings. Signing in again to an AI you already use keeps your choices as they are.
• Update now works right after a new version comes out. For up to an hour after a release, Update now could say "Syft Notes is up to date" and do nothing. It now asks for the newest version each time you press it.
• On Windows, the old copy is cleared away. Moving to the new way of updating (0.23.0) left the old copy behind, so Syft Notes was listed twice in Settings → Apps, and the app could be closed for several minutes during the move. Syft Notes now removes the old copy by itself, and clicking a Syft Notes notification opens the right copy again. Your lectures and settings aren't touched.

Good to know

• If Update now says "up to date" while this version is out, quit Syft Notes and open it again, then press Update now. The version you have looked up the newest version up to an hour earlier. This version fixes that for the next update.
• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

Syft Notes 0.23.1

Fixes

• On a Mac, the Syft Notes icon in your Dock works again. If you had kept Study Stash in your Dock, its icon showed a question mark after 0.23.0 renamed the app to Syft Notes, and clicking it did nothing. The first time this version opens, it points that icon at Syft Notes for you. Your Dock blinks once, and the icon stays where you put it. You don't need to do anything.
• New versions arrive sooner. Syft Notes now looks for a new version 2 minutes after it opens and then every hour (it was every 6 hours), so a fix reaches you the same day.

Good to know

• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within about an hour, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

Syft Notes 0.23.0

New

• The Syft look. Syft Notes now wears the colours of its pixel-s logo, light or dark: ink and paper, coral when you're recording, lilac for what's picked, sky for progress. The old teal is gone.
  • Buttons are the logo's square cells.
  • The recorder is the same on Mac and Windows.
  • The menu-bar dropdown (the tray on Windows) shows what's recording and your recent lectures.
  • Instead of twenty colour themes there's light, dark or follow your computer. A theme you picked before still loads, in the new look.
• Smaller updates that never ask for a password. Syft Notes now installs and updates a new way, so each update brings only what changed. You don't need to do anything: your next update moves you over by itself, and your lectures, settings and AI apps stay as they are.
  • On a Mac, the app is now called Syft Notes in your Applications folder (it was "Study Stash"). It renames itself the first time it opens.
  • On Windows, the first time Syft Notes is idle after this update, it moves to its new home and opens again within about a minute. Your Start menu entry, taskbar pin and start at login come with it.
  • On Linux, the download is now an AppImage.
• Gemini sign-in works with Google's code. Signing in to Gemini ends on a Google page with a code to paste. Syft Notes now has a box for it, right where you signed in.
• One "Are you sure?" Every question, like deleting a lecture, now opens over the window you're in. The safe button comes first, and Escape always answers no.

Fixes

• No more crash when you stop a recording a few seconds in (Windows with a graphics card). The speech models now take turns loading.
• Ask gives due times in your own time zone. An assignment due at 10:15 AM is no longer called overdue at 2:15 AM.
• The AI you sign into during setup shows Connected in Settings straight away, with no second Connect.
• Gemini's Google sign-in opens in your own browser, where you're already signed in, instead of an empty one.
• Canvas setup counts the classes it brings in, so "found" and what you get always match.
• Pressing Record on a nearly full disk says so, even with Syft Notes' notifications turned off, instead of doing nothing.
• With no AI chosen, Listen, review cards and exam prep say to choose one in Settings → Your AI, instead of pointing you to install Ollama.
• Ask says it plainly when something goes wrong: offline, it says Gemini couldn't be reached, and it never shows an AI's raw error text.
• Signing in to your AI: Claude's Sign in waits until you've really signed in again; after a plan problem, Try again lets you use another account; and on a Mac, Gemini's real reason for refusing a sign-in is shown.
• Downloading a lecture includes what you typed, even when no notes were written.
• Keep recording shows the lecture's class the whole time, not "Unsorted".
• Quick search takes you to the moment that matched, not the start of the passage.
• Attached files are listed under "Attachments", and typing "- " on a bulleted line no longer adds a second bullet.
• Removing a class no longer changes the other classes' colours.
• Settings only mentions Ollama once you choose it, and names the right model for your computer.
• Canvas: which courses come in as classes now follows Canvas's own course details, so a real class is never left out; a past assignment with nothing to hand in leaves "To hand in"; and on Windows an assignment shows "Open in Canvas" once.
• Exam prep knows the exam's day in your own time zone.
• Formulas keep their hyphens and plus signs together (k-means++).
• Math in a note's Definitions keeps its terms (no more "-means" for "k-means").
• "The microphone didn't start" no longer shows up with a working microphone while Syft Notes is busy, for example just after it opens.
• Listen no longer closes the app when a lecture plays to its end.
• On Windows, the background library starts again if it ever stops unexpectedly, so your AI apps can keep reading your notes.
• On Windows, an AI's change to a lecture can always be undone. Sometimes it wasn't recorded, so Undo couldn't bring the lecture back.
• A follow-up question asked the moment an answer finishes is no longer refused as "still answering".
• Phone photos go with the right lecture when you keep recording, or a planned lecture starts.
• Home no longer says "No notes yet" when Syft Notes couldn't reach your notes. It says what went wrong.
• A page that takes too long says so, instead of quietly showing nothing.
• "Rewriting…" no longer gets stuck when the library drops out for a moment.
• Moving or renaming a lecture keeps your edits. Changes you had made to a lecture's notes file could be lost when the lecture was moved to another class or renamed, and a move could write over a file of your own with the same name. Neither happens now.
• After moving a note, pressing Undo, and moving it again, the "Moved · Undo" message stays for its full time.
• Progress bars are a deeper blue, so you can see them at a glance.
• Class names stop at 60 characters wherever you type one, so a long name can't fail later.

Good to know

• On Linux, some systems need FUSE before an AppImage will run: install libfuse2 (or libfuse2t64 on Ubuntu 24.04). Until then, your current copy keeps working and says what to install.
• On a Mac, if you kept Study Stash in your Dock, its icon may show a question mark after this update, because the app is now called Syft Notes. 0.23.1, a few hours behind this update, fixes it by itself.
• On Windows, the installer still shows "unknown publisher" for now.
• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within a few hours, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

Syft Notes 0.22.1

Fixes

• On a Mac, Syft Notes opens again. With "Answer your phone when Syft Notes is closed" on, opening the app from Spotlight, Finder or the Dock could say The application "Syft Notes" is not open anymore. and nothing would open. The part that keeps answering your phone in the background was being taken for the app itself. It isn't any more.
• Nothing fails silently. A page that couldn't load used to stay blank or out of date. Now it says something went wrong, so you know to try again.
• Your AI's status agrees everywhere. The AI rows in Settings and the cards about a problem with your AI now read the same thing, so one can't say "Not set up" while the other says you're connected.
• Text that's cut short can be read. Hover over a name, title or message that ends in "…" to see all of it.
• The AI pickers are easier to read. The picked AI's line and the ones you can't pick yet now have clear contrast.
• On a Mac, the Get-ready window stays in the Dock while it's open, and has the usual Window menu (⌘W, ⌘M) and ⌘, for Settings.
• Screen readers now name the buttons that only had an icon: remove, search, close and dismiss.

Good to know

• If Syft Notes already won't open on your Mac: this update can't reach a Mac that's stuck, so do one of these once:
  • restart your Mac (or log out and back in), then open Syft Notes; or
  • open Activity Monitor, quit the "Syft Notes" that has no window, then open Syft Notes within half a minute.
• The Canvas extension: the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Add-ons both have version 1.8 now. Setup finds your school's Canvas by itself in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Vivaldi and Firefox, with nothing to type.
• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within a few hours, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.

Syft Notes 0.22.0

New

• Canvas with nothing to type, in Firefox. When setup reaches Canvas, Syft Notes asks your browser's add-on store which version it hands out. Firefox Add-ons already has 1.8, which finds your school's Canvas by itself, so Firefox users no longer type their Canvas address. Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc and Vivaldi still get the step where you type it once, until the Chrome Web Store has 1.8. Then they switch over by themselves, with no app update. If an older add-on checks in instead, or nothing does within a minute and a half, you're offered the address step.
• The Canvas extension's new look. Its popup and the page it opens when you add it wear Syft Notes' pixel s and colours.

Fixes

• Lectures don't go missing from their classes.
  • A lecture filed as "cs 101" counts for the class "CS 101".
  • A lecture that couldn't be filed, or is still waiting for its notes, is said so in the library and to Claude and the other AI apps, instead of showing up nowhere.
  • On Windows, a class whose name ends in a dot or a space, or is a name Windows keeps for itself (CON, NUL, COM1…), gets a folder Windows accepts, so its lectures save.
• Flowcharts always draw. A chart laid out at the same moment the app first loaded its fonts could be given up on, leaving it blank until you restarted.
• On a Mac, the recording pill stays out of your way. Switching to another app while you record no longer pulls Syft Notes back in front. Clicking back into the library hides the pill.
• The level meters grow from the middle again, up and down at once.
• On Windows, the installed app carries none of the code its own automatic checks use.

Good to know

• Needs: on a Mac, macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later, Apple silicon or Intel; on Windows, Windows 10 or 11; on Linux, a desktop with PipeWire or PulseAudio.
• Updating: installed copies update themselves within a few hours, when nothing is recording and you aren't typing in a lecture's notes. To update now, use Settings → General → Updates → Update now.
• The Canvas extension is version 1.9 here. The stores update it on their own schedule: Firefox Add-ons has 1.8, and the Chrome Web Store is still at 1.6.
• The privacy page has one new line under what the app contacts: it asks Google's and Mozilla's add-on stores which version of the add-on they hand out, and nothing else.