Steno 0.6.5

Steno v0.6.5

System audio

• No more Screen Recording permission. Recording both sides of a call now uses Core Audio Process Taps instead of screen capture, so Steno no longer asks for the Screen Recording permission. Turn the "Record system audio" toggle off any time to record the microphone only.

Updates

• Automatic idle install. Steno now installs a downloaded update while your Mac is idle and relaunches on its own — and never while you're recording or processing. Turn off "Install updates automatically" in Settings → General to keep the manual "Restart to update" prompt.
• Redirect-safe update check. The manual check-for-updates now follows redirects, so it keeps working after the download location moves.

Meetings

• Re-transcribe a recording. Re-run transcription on an existing recording from its note — useful after switching engine or language.
• Undo a deleted note. Deleting a note now shows an Undo; the note is soft-deleted and recoverable rather than gone immediately. The extra confirm step is gone as a result.

Transcription

• Chinese Simplified & Traditional. Choose Simplified or Traditional Chinese when the Whisper transcription engine is selected in Settings → AI.

UX polish

• Low-memory model warning. Settings now warns when a local summarization model may exceed your Mac's available memory before you switch to it.
• Opening Settings from a bare link now lands on General instead of stranding you on a stale tab.
• The AI's internal reasoning tags no longer leak into your notes in a few remaining cases.
• Fewer false "meeting detected" prompts.

Fixes

• The macOS Keychain "Safe Storage" prompt no longer appears on every launch.
• Macs below macOS 14.4 are no longer auto-updated to a build they can't launch — the updater now honours the OS floor, and a manual check explains that a newer macOS is required. (Thanks @Optic00 for catching this before it shipped.)

Under the hood

• Nav-security hardening: window.open is denied and foreign navigation blocked on all app windows.
• Per-PR CI now runs the backend unit tests and renderer typecheck; a nightly tier asserts real summarization-model output.

Upgrade notes

• Steno now requires macOS 14.4 (Sonoma) or later. This is a consequence of the new Core Audio system-audio path. Every Apple Silicon Mac can update to 14.4+ for free. If you stay on an older macOS, your current Steno install keeps working but will no longer receive updates.

Thanks to our contributors

Huge thanks to @Optic00 for the bulk of this release — system audio without Screen Recording, re-transcribe, undo delete, the low-memory warning, nav-security hardening, and much more — and to @BrianNguyen291 for Chinese Simplified/Traditional support. 🙏

Downloads

• Apple Silicon (M1-M5): stenoAI-macos-arm64.dmg

The .zip and .yml assets below are used by the in-app auto-updater - no need to download them manually.

First Time Setup

1. Download the DMG
2. Install by dragging Steno to Applications
3. Launch app - setup wizard runs automatically
4. Grant microphone permissions when prompted
5. Start recording meetings!

Requirements

• Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) - Intel Macs are not supported (since v0.4.0)
• macOS 14.4 (Sonoma) or later
• Internet connection for initial setup
• Microphone access permissions

Intel Mac users

Steno is Apple Silicon only (since v0.4.0). Intel users should stay on v0.3.8, the last release supporting Intel Macs. Auto-update on existing Intel installs is gated and will not offer newer versions to those machines.