Get your chats in order - Loach v1.3.0 with folders, colour labels, pinned responses and message sharing

[ztcs-software]

Once the sidebar fills up, finding the right conversation starts to matter as much as the answer inside it. v1.3.0 is mostly about that: folders you make by dragging one chat onto another, colour labels that follow a chat everywhere, and pinned responses so a good answer doesn't get buried under fifty turns of scrollback. There's also a way to get a message out of the app and in front of someone else, and Ollama can now start itself if you'd rather not.

👉 Download Loach v1.3.0
or update directly from the app in Settings → Updates.

Chat folders

Drag one chat in the sidebar onto another, give the folder a name, and both are filed together. Folders get their own section between Pinned and the date groups, start collapsed, and remember which ones you left open between launches. Drop a chat on a folder to file it, drop it back on a date caption (Today, Yesterday, …) to take it out. The folder's own menu has Rename and Delete folder - deleting never deletes the chats inside, they just move back to the main list. Folders don't nest. One level is enough to find things.

Colour labels

Tag any chat Red, Amber, Green, Blue, Purple or Pink from the Label menu, which you'll find in the sidebar row menu, the chat header, and the Space view. The colour renders as a dot at the start of the row and follows the chat everywhere it's listed, so a label you set inside a Space is the same dot you see in the sidebar later. No label clears it.

Pinned responses

Some answers you want to get back to. Pin any reply from its … menu and it lands as a chip in a Pinned bar under the chat header - click the chip and Loach scrolls that response back into view and flashes it. Chip text is the response with its markdown stripped, so a code-only answer previews as its first line of code, and hovering shows more of it. Pinning is a bookmark, not an edit: the message still reaches the model exactly like every other turn. Pins are stored with the chat, so they survive restarts and travel in exports.

Share a message

Share in any message's … menu opens a dialog with two modes. As text gives you the message as written - Copy puts it on the clipboard, or hand it to Facebook, X, Reddit or LinkedIn and Loach opens that network's composer in your browser with the text pre-filled, trimmed to whatever length each one accepts. The clipboard always gets the full thing. As image draws the same message as a chat-bubble PNG that follows your current light or dark theme, which you can copy or save through the native save dialog. Loach uploads nothing either way - sharing hands text to your browser or leaves an image on your clipboard.

Start Ollama from Loach

When the daemon isn't answering, the model picker now offers a Start Ollama button that launches it and swaps in the model list once it responds. If it fails, the error shows up in the menu rather than somewhere you'd have to go looking for it. Settings → Providers can also start Ollama automatically every time Loach opens - that one's off by default, because starting a background service should be your call, and it only applies to an Ollama running on this computer. A remote one isn't Loach's to start.

Auto-check for updates

Also opt-in, in Settings → Updates. Switch it on and Loach asks the release server once per launch whether there's a newer version. If there is, an Update available dialog shows the version you're on, the one that's out, and that release's notes, with Update now and Later. Nothing is downloaded or installed until you pick Update now, and the manual Check for updates button works the same whether the auto-check is on or not.

Fixes

• Hitting send twice in quick succession can no longer dispatch the same message twice, and compaction no longer hangs partway through.
• Switching endpoints or editing a Space no longer leaves stale entries behind, and per-chat parameters merge correctly instead of clobbering your defaults.
• An interrupted database migration no longer leaves the app unable to start, and MCP servers stop needlessly reconnecting.
• Assorted stability, security and accessibility hardening throughout the app.

👉 View the full changelog in GitHub Releases

Notes on previous minor releases

The 1.2.x releases since the last announcement went into speed, reach and polish. v1.2.4 made cold start, first token and long-transcript streaming noticeably faster, and brought in-app updates to Linux .deb and .rpm installs. v1.2.5 was a large accessibility pass - the chat list is fully keyboard-operable, the system "reduce motion" setting is honoured, screen readers are told when a reply starts and finishes - plus WCAG AA contrast for status colours. v1.2.2 started accepting MCP servers on localhost and your own LAN, and v1.2.1 and v1.2.3 cleared out streaming races, startup hangs and a pile of smaller annoyances.