What's new

Changelog

Every notable change to Heliotype, in order.

Latest

1.3.5 — a way to know there's a new version · July 28, 2026

One new menu item, and a Finder shortcut that can no longer install itself broken:

  • Settings → Check for Updates… Heliotype still never contacts a server on its own — there is no automatic check, no check at launch, and no background timer. Clicking that item makes one plain request for a small file listing the current version: no query string, no install id, no counter, no cookie. Whatever the answer — newer version, up to date, or something went wrong — it tells you, and writes it to a local log.
  • The Finder "Transcribe with Heliotype" shortcut can no longer install itself dead. If you installed it while running Heliotype from the downloaded disk image — or straight from your Downloads folder, which macOS runs from a temporary location — the shortcut memorised a path that stopped existing, and then did nothing at all when clicked, silently. It now installs against your copy in Applications, and if it can't, it says so instead of writing a shortcut that can never work.

Earlier

1.3.4 — back-to-back meetings, and honest names · July 28, 2026

Two fixes straight from a day of real meetings:

  • Back-to-back meetings auto-record. Meeting apps often keep re-grabbing the microphone between consecutive calls, which could leave the second call unrecorded. Stopping a recording now re-arms the trigger the moment the microphone is released — the next call starts recording seconds after it begins.
  • Names respect timezones. Calendar lookups now convert event times to your Mac's timezone before deciding which meeting you're in, so a recording can no longer borrow the name of a meeting hours away. Every naming decision is explained in a local naming.log.

Earlier

1.3.3 — History, and a calmer menu · July 28, 2026

The dropdown now answers the two questions you actually have: what's happening, and where did it go.

  • History. A submenu with your last ten processed files — menu recordings and right-click transcriptions alike. Click one to open its transcript; recordings without a transcript are revealed in Finder.
  • Recordings Folder. One click, straight to your recordings in Finder.
  • One status line. The first line now carries the whole state — Ready, Recording, 4:15, or Processing, name — 44% — and the per-file progress bars are gone from the dropdown.
  • Settings submenu. One-time setup (API key, folder, Quick Action, Launch at Login) tucked under Settings, out of the daily menu.

Earlier

1.3.2 — names stop borrowing the wrong meeting · July 28, 2026

Fixes from a day of real-world testing:

  • Stricter calendar naming. On a busy work calendar, an ad-hoc call could be named after a nearby unrelated event. The calendar lookup now only accepts a meeting that actually overlaps the recording, skips all-day and declined events, and when no meeting matches, the recording keeps its honest Teams-20260728-1030-style name instead of a wrong confident one.
  • A naming log. Every naming decision is written to naming.log next to the app's settings — which source produced the name, the calendar event it came from, and the filename the recording was saved under. If a name ever surprises you, the log says why.

Earlier

1.3.1 — automatic recording catches real calls · July 28, 2026

A same-day fix from the first real-world test of 1.3.0:

  • Teams and browser calls now trigger automatic recording. The apps that hold the microphone during a call are usually helper processes — Microsoft Teams captures audio in a helper, and Chromium browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc) in their audio-service helper. Detection matched app identities exactly, so those calls were missed; it now recognizes an app's whole family. Zoom and the other native apps were unaffected.

Earlier

1.3.0 — meetings record themselves · July 28, 2026

Turn on one switch and recording starts when your call actually starts — and stops after it ends. Highlights:

  • Start meeting recording automatically. The trigger is the microphone, not the clock: when Zoom, Teams, Webex, Slack, FaceTime — or a browser tab running Google Meet — holds audio input for a few seconds, recording starts by itself. When the call releases the microphone, the recording stops about 30 seconds later, saves, and transcribes. Your calendar still names the recording; a call with no invite is named after the app instead. Detection is app-level only — Heliotype learns which app is using the microphone, never a word of audio — and the switch is off by default.
  • Notifications with real buttons. Banners now come from Heliotype itself — its own name and icon, its own entry in System Settings → Notifications. The recording banner carries a Stop Recording button; a failure carries Open Log. macOS asks once, on first launch, whether to allow them.
  • A calmer menu. The dropdown now opens with what matters: the live status line, two orientation lines, Start Meeting Recording, and the two automation switches. The Project picker is gone — your calendar was already doing that job.

Earlier

1.2.0 — notarized by Apple, plus the Heliotype Button · July 24, 2026

First launch is now a plain double-click, and recording gets a floating one-click button. Highlights:

  • Notarized by Apple. The DMG is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized — no security warning, no System Settings detour, on any macOS version. (Upgrading from an older build? macOS re-asks for the two recording permissions once — a consequence of the new, stronger signature.)
  • The Heliotype Button. An optional round, classic-Mac-styled record toggle that floats above every window on every Space. Click to start or stop a meeting recording; drag it anywhere; it never steals focus. Turn it on via the Heliotype Button menu item.

Earlier

1.1.0 — license keys and a real trial · July 17, 2026

Buying Heliotype now hands you a license key right on the checkout confirmation page, and the app verifies it entirely offline — no account, no activation server, nothing phones home. Highlights:

  • License keys, verified on your Mac. Paste the key from the confirmation page via Enter License Key… in the menu. Lost it? Your Stripe receipt links back to the same page, which shows the same key again.
  • The 14-day trial is now real. The full app, free, for 14 days from first launch — then buying is asked for when you start something new. Nothing you already recorded or transcribed is ever locked, and a rolling recording can always be stopped and saved.

Earlier

1.0.0 — first public release · July 15, 2026

Heliotype 1.0.0 ships meeting recording with no bot in the call, calendar-based naming through the native macOS Calendar, a guided first run, crash-safe recording, and a real command-line interface. Highlights:

  • Recording without a bot. System audio is captured through a CoreAudio process tap, plus your microphone captured clean — far-end bleed is ducked at mixdown. Nothing joins the call and no screen-recording indicator appears. Requires macOS 15+.
  • Calendar naming, natively. Each recording is auto-named PROJECT-Title-YYYYMMDD-HHMM.m4a from the matching event in macOS Calendar (EventKit), with a deterministic timestamp fallback.
  • Live recording state in the menu bar. A running timer shows Recording… (MM:SS) so it is obvious the meeting is being captured.
  • Guided first run. A welcome, a self-ticking setup checklist, and a "Get a Free Key" dialog walk a new user from install to first transcript.
  • Crash and quit recovery. An interrupted session is swept at launch and offered back through a Recover flow, so an unsaved recording is never silently lost. Quit and system shutdown stop, mix, and save before exit — the mic is never left hot.
  • One-sided-capture warning. If only the microphone or only system audio was captured, the app says so instead of shipping a half-recording.
  • Pre-upload cost estimate. Before any upload, the app shows the estimated AssemblyAI cost, so there are no billing surprises. Recordings already being transcribed are never uploaded — or paid for — twice.
  • Transcripts stay put. Recordings land in ~/Movies/Heliotype by default (changeable from the menu); the transcript is written beside the recording as .txt. An existing transcript is never overwritten — new output takes a (2) suffix.
  • A real command line. heliotype [--dry-run] [--version] FILE… transcribes existing recordings from the terminal; dry-run mode writes a stub with no upload or spend.
  • Key in the Keychain. The AssemblyAI API key lives in the macOS login Keychain, not in a plaintext config. An existing plaintext key is migrated automatically on first run.

Verify your download

SHA-256 checksum

Heliotype 1.4.0 is a direct download. If you want to confirm the file you got is the exact one published here, compare its SHA-256. In Terminal, run shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Heliotype-1.4.0.dmg — it should print:

9309f2714789201b10ec2e5eb9146d88b2956eebc9f2d5ed880e9eb3919bd31e

Updates

How you'll hear about updates

Heliotype never auto-updates and never checks on its own — no check at launch, no background timer. Since 1.4.0 you can ask it: Settings → Check for Updates… makes one request and tells you what it found; nothing installs itself. New builds are also announced on this page and at @heliotypeapp — download the latest DMG from the homepage when one ships.