NotchLive Release Notes

August 2026

NotchLive 1.8.5 introduces Kōkako 2.0, a rebuilt microphone path designed to reduce matching Mac playback inside NotchLive without taking over the voice processing used by meeting apps.

Kōkako 2.0

• Replaced the Kōkako 1.0 Apple Voice Processing path with normal microphone capture and local WebRTC AEC3 echo cancellation.
• Uses a local ScreenCaptureKit playback reference to help reduce matching Mac audio in microphone captions.
• Leaves Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and other call apps in control of the microphone processing sent to participants.
• Uses Legacy for a microphone-only caption session if the playback reference or AEC3 cannot start, without changing the saved engine. Everything mode still requires system-audio capture.

Compatibility And Boundaries

• Kōkako 2.0 performs echo cancellation only; it does not add noise suppression or automatic gain control.
• Voice Notes use the Legacy microphone path in this release and do not run through AEC3.
• The minimum deployment target remains macOS 14 on Apple silicon and Intel Macs; physical Kōkako 2.0 call and audio-route validation on macOS 14 remains pending.

August 2026

NotchLive 1.8.4 keeps captions intact around copy and export prompts, and makes background captioning, window controls, and Dock behavior easier to understand.

Live Timeline And Upgrade UX

• Copy and Export upgrade prompts no longer replace or clear captions already visible in Timeline.
• Pro prompts now offer clearer purchase, license activation, and dismiss choices.
• Fixed malformed or mirrored Copy and Export labels when Caption Display first opens.
• Kept setup guidance consistent between Timeline and Focus views.

Caption Controls And Windows

• Clarified the difference between hiding NotchLive while captions continue and stopping captions completely.
• Added clearer background-caption status and controls to the menu bar.
• Closing Caption Display now stops captioning; minimizing it or using Hide can keep captions running.
• Opening NotchLive from the Dock after a full quit now brings up Caption Display with one click without changing first-run onboarding.

August 2026

NotchLive 1.8.3 improves audio teardown, translation setup, and Caption Display reliability.

Audio And Widget

• Pausing or stopping Kōkako captioning now restores Mac audio correctly instead of leaving it reduced until NotchLive quits.
• Added an Appearance setting to hide the extra microphone-caption panel below the widget in Everything mode while microphone captions, Timeline, and saved sessions continue normally.

Translation And Voice Notes

• Fixed regional language variants such as English (UK) being incorrectly marked unavailable for same-language translation.
• Translation menus now start required language downloads, keep unsupported choices unavailable, and apply the selection after setup finishes.
• Simplified live-caption translation around “Translate to [language]” and clarified Voice Notes source-to-target controls.

Caption Display

• Timeline now shows the same interactive setup banner as Focus when caption setup is incomplete.
• Fixed clipped Copy and Export labels when Timeline opens for the first time.

July 2026

NotchLive 1.8.2 makes Live Timeline search easier to follow and gives Caption Display a more predictable keyboard, Dock, and window workflow.

Timeline Search

• Search now jumps directly to the first result and keeps the active result visibly selected.
• Matching words are highlighted clearly in both light and dark appearances.
• Move between results with Return, the search controls, or the Up and Down arrow keys.
• Press Escape once to clear the query and again to close the search field.
• Fixed later Timeline captions sometimes remaining dim or unavailable to search.

Caption Display Controls

• The Caption Display shortcut can now be customized in Settings and is included in onboarding.
• Improved shortcut activation so Caption Display comes forward reliably without reopening the notch widget behind it.
• Added Dock menu actions for Caption Display, the widget, captioning, saved sessions, and Settings.
• Made closing behavior follow how Caption Display was opened: return to the widget when opened from the widget, or stop captioning when opened from the Dock.
• Prevented resuming captions from reopening the widget while Caption Display is visible.

Mac Polish And Reliability

• Refined transitions between the notch widget and Caption Display, including behavior on macOS 15.
• Corrected oversized NotchLive Dock icon rendering on macOS 14 and 15.

July 2026

NotchLive 1.8.1 adds Live Timeline: switch from a focused current caption to searchable context without stopping the live stream.

Focus And Live Timeline

• Added Focus and Timeline modes to the floating caption window.
• Scroll through finalized captions while new captions continue arriving.
• Search the current live transcript with Command-F.
• Copy everything captured so far or export it as TXT or Markdown.
• Added source-aware Audio and You labels. These identify the capture source, not individual speakers.
• Added a micro-timeline, unseen-caption count, conditional edge fades, and Jump to Live for fast navigation.

A More Mac-Native Caption Window

• Added an optional pin that keeps captions above Zoom, Meet, and other working apps.
• Made the open caption window available through Command-Tab and the Dock, then restored accessory behavior when it closes.
• Improved compact-width controls, global Timeline text sizing, light mode, and responsive layout.

Feedback And Reliability

• Added a calmer audio-reactive visualizer for Caption, Translate, and Voice Notes modes, with Reduce Motion support.
• Improved scroll-state reliability and localized plural handling.
• Fixed duplicate live previews in Meeting Intelligence.

An unrecorded Live Timeline stays in memory for the current live run only. Record a session when you want a transcript retained after the run.

July 2026

NotchLive 1.8.0 introduces Kōkako, a new microphone engine for clearer speech capture, better audio-device recovery, and more responsive captions, translation, Voice Notes, recordings, and Meeting Intelligence.

Kōkako Voice Engine

• Added Kōkako as the recommended microphone engine, while keeping Legacy available as a compatibility option in Settings.
• Improved quiet-speech capture and added Quiet Speech, Balanced, and Noisy Room sensitivity choices.
• Added automatic per-session fallback to Legacy if Kōkako cannot start, without changing the saved preference.
• Kept speech recognition private and on-device with WhisperKit.

Reliability And Controls

• Improved recovery when connecting or disconnecting AirPods, wired microphones, and USB audio devices.
• Rebuilt the audio graph safely when switching between Kōkako and Legacy.
• Added bounded recovery when a microphone starts but produces no audio frames.
• Added an optional Hide after silence control with an adjustable delay up to 30 seconds.
• Separated system and microphone caption surfaces so one silent source no longer dims the other.
• Improved Voice Notes startup feedback, model switching, first-time model preparation, and idle transcription behavior.

Translation

• Added guided setup for missing source and target language pairs.
• Kept captions visible while NotchLive checks translation availability.
• Improved language detection, target switching, and readiness updates after installing languages.
• Preserved the original caption when translation fails instead of showing an empty result.

July 2026

NotchLive 1.7.1 improves multilingual caption reliability, script-aware text layout, the floating caption experience, and recovery when capture or Meeting Intelligence ends unexpectedly.

Multilingual Captions

• Improved native-language live captions with better language conditioning, especially when using smaller speech models.
• Added script-aware caption wrapping for Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and other languages that do not consistently use spaces.
• Improved language handling so captions stay in the spoken language before optional translation.

Floating Captions

• Redesigned the floating caption window with balanced system-audio and microphone streams.
• Added adjustable floating caption text from 16pt.
• Made Sign Cues more compact in the floating window.
• Added subtle hover feedback while preserving control tooltips.

Reliability And Diagnostics

• Improved capture rollback when audio startup fails or permissions change.
• Improved Meeting Intelligence persistence so active work is recovered and saved more reliably.
• Added optional privacy-safe diagnostics for setup and model readiness. Diagnostics never include audio, captions, transcripts, notes, or meeting content and can be disabled in Settings.

July 2026

NotchLive 1.7.0 adds Meeting Intelligence, native sharing across saved content, clearer setup recovery, searchable settings, and accessibility-focused Sign Cues.

Meeting Intelligence

• Added Meeting Intelligence for supported Macs with Apple Intelligence enabled.
• Added a live Meeting Intelligence window with current focus, key points, open questions, action items, key moments, and meeting time.
• Added saved Meetings with reanalyze, copy, share, export, and delete actions.
• Added automatic Meeting Intelligence preference controls in Settings and the menu bar.
• Meeting Intelligence stays private to the Mac experience: no meeting bot joins the call, and NotchLive does not upload audio to a cloud transcription service.

See the current AI meeting notes workflow on Mac, including live captions, Meeting Intelligence, optional transcripts, and Live Timeline.

Sharing And Saved Content

• Added native macOS sharing for Meetings, Sessions, and Notes.
• Added copied states to copy actions so users get clear feedback after copying saved content.
• Aligned Notes actions with Meetings and Sessions for a more consistent saved-content UI.

Setup And Settings

• Added Finish Setup surfaces for missing app audio permission, microphone permission, and speech model setup.
• Added drag-to-add help for macOS Screen Recording permission when the app is not already listed.
• Made the Finish Setup banner fully clickable from the NotchLive window.
• Added a searchable Settings window so users can find growing settings faster.
• Added hover tooltips for the main NotchLive toolbar controls.

Captions And Accessibility

• Improved microphone caption behavior in noisy speaker environments while preserving Voice Notes behavior.
• Added experimental Sign Cues: ASL-inspired visual cues for questions, speaker hand-offs, waiting, repeating, slowing down, action items, and name mentions. Sign Cues are not sign language translation.
• Updated the app icon assets so NotchLive appears cleanly in macOS app lists and permission surfaces.
• Changed automatic update visibility timing so update checks can surface within about 6 hours instead of waiting roughly 24 hours.

June 2026

NotchLive 1.6.3 rebuilds first-run onboarding around the NotchLive window, with clearer setup guidance for captions, translations, sessions, and voice notes.

Onboarding

• Added a new NotchLive-style onboarding flow with natural language setup steps.
• Clarified app audio, microphone access, speech model setup, and starting captions.
• Added model download progress, retry, and cancel handling during onboarding.
• Improved onboarding behavior so the NotchLive window stays out of the way until setup is finished or skipped.
• Updated localized onboarding copy across supported languages.

June 2026

NotchLive 1.6.2 includes bug fixes and improvements.

Bug Fixes And Improvements

• General reliability improvements.

June 2026

NotchLive 1.6.1 is a focused reliability update for microphone captions and recorded sessions.

Microphone Captions

• Added a Microphone Language setting, with Auto as the default, to improve live caption accuracy when you mostly speak one language.
• Moved microphone captions onto the same accuracy-first transcription path used by Voice Notes.
• Reduced early low-confidence Whisper hallucinations in live microphone captions.
• Filtered common non-speech artifacts such as silence, keyboard sounds, clicks, and other noise labels from live microphone captions.

Recording Reliability

• Improved Both mode session recording so missed microphone segments can be backfilled from the recorded mic buffer instead of being skipped.

May 2026

NotchLive 1.6.0 makes meeting context easier to capture and reuse: localized UI, Ghost Mode, meeting prompts, and export-ready TXT, Markdown, and JSON outputs.

Exports And Sessions

• Added one Export menu for saved sessions and Voice Notes with TXT, Markdown, and JSON options.
• Added a default export folder setting, with automatic exports organized into clean per-session and per-note folders.
• Added Markdown and JSON exports for notes, so dictated notes are easier to reuse outside NotchLive.
• Improved AI session transcript readability with paragraph grouping instead of one long block.
• Made older AI transcript regeneration safer for saved sessions.

Localization

• Localized the app UI across supported languages, including onboarding, Settings, release-critical labels, and Pro purchase surfaces.
• Unsupported system languages continue to fall back to English.

Privacy And Meeting Controls

• Added Ghost Mode to hide NotchLive from screen sharing and screen recordings while captions keep running.
• Added Ghost Mode controls in the notch UI, Settings, and the menu bar.
• Added ask-to-record meeting detection that can show a small branded prompt when NotchLive detects a likely meeting or call.
• Added a menu bar recording indicator so active recordings are easier to notice.

Recording Controls And Fixes

• Added the audio source switcher to the main NotchLive UI.
• Made the Notes record button match the main Caption and Translate record button.
• Fixed microphone startup when recording from Notes first.
• Fixed a settings-window interaction bug after focus changes.

May 2026

A translation reliability release that fixes macOS language-pair downloads, refreshes Settings after system language changes, and filters keyboard or fan noise before baby-notch microphone captions reach Whisper.

Translation Downloads

• Fixed translation language downloads getting stuck after macOS opened the native language-pair download prompt.
• Uses macOS English-to-target translation pair status as the source of truth instead of stale local download state.
• Added Refresh and Retry states for translation language status in Settings.
• Settings now refreshes language status after returning from macOS System Settings.

Translation Reliability

• Refreshes the active Apple Translation session after a selected target language pair finishes installing.
• Stops unavailable Apple Translation sessions from being treated as successful translations.
• Prevents untranslated source text from being cached as translated output when Apple Translation is not ready.

Caption Reliability

• Filters keyboard and fan noise before sending baby-notch mic audio to Whisper in Both mode.

May 2026

A maintenance release focused on lower idle energy use, cleaner sibling-app switching, and notch hover behavior that works consistently on notched and external displays.

Energy Use

• Replaced continuous global mouse-move polling with event-driven hover tracking around the notch area.
• Click monitors now run only while the NotchLive UI is open.
• Reduced background work when NotchLive is idle, including when captions or notes are not active.

Notch Switcher

• Expanded the shared NotchPad / NotchLive hover area so the switcher is easier to reveal.
• Matched the hover trigger to the switcher panel footprint on both notched and non-notched screens.
• Improved switcher exit tracking without returning to global mouse tracking.

Interface Polish

• Updated switcher-only app icons so the NotchPad and NotchLive selector uses clean glyph artwork without app-icon borders.

May 2026

A new compact high-accuracy speech model, smoother model switching, natural-language Voice Notes with translation controls, non-English microphone caption fixes, and Team Pack license support.

Speech Models

• Added Large Turbo Compact, a high-quality speech model option with a smaller download than the full Large Turbo model.
• Updated the full Large Turbo model entry to reflect its larger download size and highest-quality positioning.
• Improved model switching so captions can keep running while another model is prepared when a usable model is already loaded.
• Fixed stale model loading states after quick model changes, cancellations, deletes, or re-downloads.
• Improved incomplete model download recovery by clearing broken model folders and verifying required model files before loading.

Voice Notes

• Added AI, Translate, and Raw views for Voice Notes.
• Voice Notes now transcribe in the spoken language instead of being forced into English.
• Added a source-language picker for Voice Notes, with Auto plus manual language choices.
• Added a translation target picker directly in the Notes controls.
• Notes can now be translated after dictation without leaving the notch.
• Changing the Notes translation target now refreshes the visible translation instead of leaving stale text.
• Copy, save, export, and NotchPad handoff now use the selected Notes view when appropriate.
• Non-English notes now avoid English-specific filler cleanup, so Turkish and other languages are preserved more naturally.
• Fixed the Notes translation language picker becoming unclickable after note text appeared on screen.

Microphone Captions

• Fixed microphone captions in Caption mode so non-English speech is transcribed in the spoken language instead of being translated to English.
• Improved Both mode microphone captions so the baby notch uses transcription behavior and follows the selected speech model.
• Recorded microphone transcript entries in Translate mode now keep source text and translated text with the selected target language.
• Notes dictation uses the same safer microphone transcription path, including the selected Notes source language when one is chosen.

Licensing

• Added support for NotchLive Team Pack license keys.
• Team Pack 5, Team Pack 10, and Team Pack 25 keys now unlock Pro through the normal license-key activation flow.
• Existing individual NotchLive Pro keys continue to activate and revalidate through the original Pro path.
• Valid Team Pack keys continue to revalidate as NotchLive Pro licenses.
• NotchPad and other wrong-product license keys still reject instead of unlocking NotchLive.
• Settings now shows the active plan label for individual and team-pack licenses.
• Improved activation reliability for valid NotchLive keys when the purchase service omits plan details in a successful response.

Settings And Window Fixes

• Fixed a Notes-path Settings bug where the Settings window could become hard to close or interact with.
• Settings now stays clickable when opened from Notes.
• Fixed Settings model rows getting stuck in stale download, selected, loading, or ready states after model changes.

May 2026

A smoother first-run experience, stronger model reliability, automatic audio-device recovery, and a more polished macOS interface.

Smoother Setup

• Redesigned onboarding so new users understand permissions, choose a speech model, watch it download and load, and start captions from a clearer final screen.
• Onboarding now resumes after macOS asks to restart NotchLive for Screen Recording permission.
• The first caption run now uses the model prepared during onboarding instead of getting stuck in a loading state.
• Added a shortcut summary for Show/Hide, Start/Stop, mode switching, and Copy Last.

Reliability

• Fixed cases where the notch could stay on Loading model... even though the model was already loaded.
• Model downloads and loading now detect incomplete files, check tokenizer availability, and time out with clearer errors instead of hanging.
• Connecting AirPods or changing the default microphone/output device now restarts capture automatically without relaunching or toggling sources.
• Settings model switches now reuse an already-loaded model when possible.

Interface Polish

• Refined settings, sessions, notes, and detail windows with a more native macOS 26-style glass treatment where it helps.
• Improved segmented controls, back buttons, export/delete actions, and other controls so the full button area is clickable.
• Cleaned up onboarding animations, permission cards, model rows, shortcut chips, and final setup messaging.
• Updated the app icon and release DMG icon so NotchLive looks right on pre-Tahoe macOS as well as newer macOS versions.

May 2026

A small bug fix release for the shared NotchPad / NotchLive selector and gentler scheduled update reminders.

Fixes

• The shared NotchPad / NotchLive selector now stays open while moving from the notch hover zone into the selector on notched Macs.
• Scheduled update checks now show the notch update button instead of interrupting with an automatic dialog in the background.
• Clicking the update button still opens the normal Sparkle update flow and release notes.

April 2026

On-demand AI dictation for saved sessions, better transcript exports, and clearer update reminders.

Features

• Saved sessions now have a Raw / AI switch so you can keep the original transcript or generate a cleaned dictation view when you need it.
• AI dictation is generated only on demand, runs through the existing local cleanup flow, and is saved with the session after generation.
• Session AI keeps speaker turns cleaner: microphone entries become You:, captured audio becomes Audio:, and system-only sessions stay plain.
• The notch now shows a visible update reminder when Sparkle finds an update, so updates are not buried in Settings.

Export

• Raw TXT export keeps timestamps and YOU labels.
• AI TXT export saves the generated AI dictation with an AI filename suffix.
• JSON export includes saved AI dictation data when it exists.

April 2026

Recording reliability, Both mode mic caption stability, and cleaner note feedback.

Fixes

• Recording stop, pause, and quit now finalize more safely so final session audio and ended timestamps are preserved.
• Saved sessions now persist translated captions more reliably.
• Stale caption lines clear more predictably after silence and when switching between widget and screen caption modes.
• Both mode microphone captions now show a loading state while the mic model is preparing and recover more reliably after audio source changes.
• Notes copy and save actions now show visible confirmation, and note cleanup preserves meaning and line breaks better.

April 2026

Voice Notes for Pro — dictate, clean up, save, export, and send notes to NotchPad.

Features

• Voice Notes — a focused dark notepad for Pro users that turns microphone input into speech-to-text notes.
• AI / Raw views — review the natural transcript or switch to an AI-cleaned note that reads more like something you wrote.
• Saved Notes library — keep dictated notes in NotchLive, copy them, export them, or delete them later.
• Send to NotchPad — hand finished notes to NotchPad when you want them in your permanent notebook.
• Sibling-app handoff polish — NotchLive now backs away before opening NotchPad so the two notch panels do not stack on top of each other.

April 2026

Baby NotchLive — compact mic captions panel in Both mode.

Features

• Baby NotchLive — when audio is set to "Both", a compact secondary panel now appears below the notch showing your microphone captions in real time. No more opening the companion window just to see what you're saying.

April 2026

Microphone permission fix.

Fixes

• Fixed microphone permission not working — the app now correctly requests microphone access

April 2026

Bug fixes and improvements.

Fixes

• Improved reliability around activation and purchase flows.
• General stability improvements.

March 2026

Bug fixes and improvements.

Fixes

• Fixed Pro mode activation edge cases.
• Resolved intermittent crashes during extended captioning sessions
• General stability and performance improvements

March 2026

5 AI models, 20 translation languages, pause/resume, and redesigned Settings.

Features

• Pause and resume captioning from the widget control bar
• 5 AI models — added Medium and Large Turbo for best accuracy
• 20 translation languages — added Dutch, Hindi, Indonesian, Polish, Russian, Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Chinese (Traditional)
• New 2-column language picker with download status indicators
• Redesigned Settings with friendlier labels and model cards
• Hot-swap AI models while captioning is running
• Small model is now the default for better out-of-box accuracy

Fixes

• Better mic accuracy in Both mode
• Fixed model loading and download UI glitches

March 2026

Bug fixes and Pro upsell improvements.

Fixes

• Improved activation reliability.
• Fixed deactivation reliability.
• Fixed Pro upsell banner not showing after license changes

March 2026

Pro upsell, non-blocking translation, and bug fixes.

Features

• Pro upsell banner with Upgrade and Activate Key buttons
• Auto-dismiss Pro upsell when license is activated
• Non-blocking translation — captions appear instantly

Fixes

• Session recording no longer cuts off when changing translation language

March 2026

Caption Display improvements.

Features

• Caption Display now auto-starts captioning when opened — no extra steps needed
• New window button in the notch control bar for quick access to Caption Display
• Dual-stream captions in Both mode: your mic (cyan, top) + system audio (white, bottom)

March 2026

Caption Display window for screen sharing.

Features

• Caption Display — floating, resizable window with large captions for screen sharing in Zoom, Meet, StreamYard, and more
• Toggle with ⌥ ⌘ F or from the menu bar
• Auto-hides notch widget when Caption Display opens, restores on close

February 2026

Both mode overhaul, mic improvements, and post-session transcription.

Improvements

• Fixed "Both" mode - system audio captioned cleanly, no mic interference
• Mic gain boost (3x) for normal speaking distance
• Post-session mic transcription with "YOU" tags in session detail
• Chronological interleaving of entries
• Widget drop shadow
• Processing indicator during mic transcription

February 2026

Caption quality and UI improvements.

Improvements

• Fuller caption lines - text fills the full width before breaking to a new line
• Reduced hallucinations with improved noise filtering
• Better text spacing and readability near the notch area
• Added Website & Support links in Settings

Fixes

• Fixed auto-update feed so future updates are detected automatically
• Fixed microphone not working in release builds

February 2026

Real-time AI captions and translation in your MacBook's notch.

Features

Captions

• Real-time speech-to-text powered by on-device Whisper AI
• Three model tiers: Light (~40 MB), Standard (~140 MB), Pro (~460 MB)
• Automatic language detection for 90+ languages
• Streaming transcription with partial updates - text appears within ~1.5s of speech

Translation

• Real-time translation to 11 languages via Apple Translation (macOS 15+)
• Debounced partial translation - see translations as you listen, not just after silence
• Supported targets: English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Arabic

Audio Sources

• System audio capture via ScreenCaptureKit - works with any app (Zoom, Meet, Teams, YouTube, etc.)
• Microphone input for in-person conversations
• Switchable on the fly

Notch Widget

• Floats over the notch area with smooth expand/collapse animations
• Works on MacBooks with and without a notch
• Hover to reveal controls: mode switch, language picker, recording, settings
• Auto-dims after silence, instantly un-dims when speech resumes

Session Recording (Pro)

• Record transcription sessions with timestamps
• Searchable session history with rename, export, and delete
• Export as TXT or JSON
• Breathing red edge overlay indicates active recording

Privacy

• Fully on-device - audio never leaves your Mac
• No cloud audio processing, no required account, and no uploaded audio or transcripts
• Hardened runtime, code signed, and notarized by Apple

Keyboard Shortcuts

• ⌥ ⌘ C Toggle captioning
• ⌥ ⌘ T Cycle mode (Caption / Translate)
• ⌥ ⌘ K Copy last caption to clipboard
• ⌥ ⌘ H Toggle widget visibility

Other

• Menu bar app (no Dock icon)
• Guided onboarding for permissions and model download
• Automatic updates via Sparkle
• Free forever for captions. Pro $14.99 one-time for translation, sessions, and export.