Remote MCP servers

TL;DR: The community voted last month for this feature, and it’s finally here. You can now connect with any apps using remote MCP servers!

New Features & Enhancements

• Remote MCP Servers: Support for remote MCP servers enabling you to connect Alter with your favorite apps and services. Includes Oauth 2.1 and API key authentication modes.
• Transcript Metadata: Added date and duration metadata to transcript files.
• Context Preview: Added right-click menu on context preview cards to create a workspace.
• Flow: Improved effeciency by merging the first two steps in one. Flow is still highly experimental.
• Flow & Websearch Display: Better display of flow steps and websearch results.
• New Models: GPT-5.2 (thinking low) and GPT-5.2 Chat (Instant)

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Audio Recording: Fixed crashes when finishing a recording and starting a new one in succession, plus other issues.
• Message Saving: Fixed crash when saving a message.
• Tool Display: Fixed tool detail pretty name display.
• Speaker Editor: Fixed issue where renaming speakers required a double save.

Conversations That Build On Each Other

TL;DR: Reuse just got smarter, you can now add insights from multiple conversations instead of starting fresh. Plus new audio settings and many stability fixes.

New Features & Enhancements

• Reuse Tool: Appends new context instead of clearing previous content so you can iterate without losing prior snippets.
• Dictation Controls: Added a silencing option (instead of ducking) and the ability to disable the chime sound.
• Custom Endpoints: Added support for Bifrost.
• Forked Windows: Offsets forked conversation windows for better visibility.

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Audio & Transcription: Fixed various crashes, including ones from the Apple local voice processor, plus fixing the missing audio files error.
• Scheduling & Automation: Avoid running multiple missed schedules.
• Models: Fetch models even when custom endpoints are empty.
• Conversation & UI: Fixed date formatting for history, conversation rename issues, misplaced conversation input in forms, focus issues, and prevented leading/trailing newlines in the replace/insert tool.
• Drag & Drop: Fixed crash when dropping some items.
• Security: Improved private key handling and error reporting when creating keys.
• Live Panels Shortcuts: Avoid resetting defaults when a user clears them.

Introducing Expense Report & Fork+Edit functions

TL;DR: Edit and refine assistant messages with full find/replace support, fork conversations to explore different paths, and generate monthly expense reports automatically. Plus audio separation for meetings and dictation, and stability fixes.

New Features & Enhancements

• Edit Assistant Messages: Edit assistant messages directly in conversations with full find/replace functionality in the detail view
• Fork Conversations: Fork conversations to explore different conversation paths
• Monthly Expenses Report Action: New action to automatically generate monthly expense reports
• Audio Separation: Separate audio processing for meetings and dictation

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Audio Recording: Multiple crash fixes
• Settings Defaults: Default max tokens set to 16000 to avoid response length issues
• Conversation Crashes: Fixed crash when adding message to empty conversation (no system prompt), crash when closing app sense context in chat window
• Whisper Model Crashes: Fixed crash when loading/unloading whisper models
• Data Races: Various improvements and fixes in text selection reading and microphone
• Scheduling: Better rescue logic for scheduling tasks
• Quick Actions: Limit description to 1 line in the popover menu for better readability
• Editor Crashes: Fixed crash in editor
• Transcript Thumbnails: Fixed crash when thumbnail not available for transcript
• Model Listing: Better refresh of models listing after fetch
• Tools: Respect user disabling default tools
• Conversation UI: Aligned bottom bar buttons

Your Morning Brief Every Day

TL;DR: You can now schedule Alter actions and our new Morning Briefing action is a perfect fit. Now your start your day informed, prepared, and focused on what truly matters with summaries of your overnight emails and today’s schedule. And finally you can edit past messages in conversations, search in the action editor and enable smart pasting on background jobs.

New Features & Enhancements

• Morning Briefing: Added morning briefing action with scheduled hour support
• Dictation: Use realtime live transcription when available
• Background Jobs: Added system notification support and smart pasting capabilities
• Action Editor: Added search field and alphabetically sorted categories
• Conversation: Added copy, retry, and edit buttons for user messages
• Actions: Categorized default actions under Alter category
• Models: Gemini 3 Pro preview available for Pro & Lifetime subscribers

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Audio Stability: Fixed chipmunk voices, bird noises, choppiness, resolved crashes when switching processors (dictation > meeting > dictation), improved audio timing issues, and prevented crash when stopping mic+system
• Notch Input: Better support for Vietnamese input methods and fixed crash on Meeting Report source
• Chat & Conversation: Fixed crash when starting/closing a chat window, fixed escape key not stopping chat, fixed autoscroll when streaming starts, and fixed crash on saving message to conversation
• Action Editor: Fixed crash on parameter selection if index is out of bounds
• Workspace: Fixed search to be lowercase and remove punctuation, fixed renaming of workspaces, and fixed transcript context not being added to workspace
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Fixed crash in GlobalKeyboardShortcutListener
• Performance: Improved drop and context strip performance

Local+ Plans Fix

TL;DR: Fixed an issue where Local+ plan users were incorrectly treated as free users. All billing and plan recognition is now back to normal. Also includes image generation crash fix, improved speech-to-prompt handling.

New Features & Enhancements

• Speech-to-Prompt: Improved handling by avoiding cleanup for speech-to-prompt operations

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Critical Billing Fix: Resolved issue where Local+ plan users were incorrectly treated as free users - billing and plan recognition now working correctly
• Image Generation: Fixed crash when generating images
• Whisper: Fixed Whisper support for Perennial
• Tools: Fixed issue with listing quick actions
• Audio: Minor warning cleanup
• Typo: Fixed “allways” → “always” typo

Introducing Invisible Alter Actions

TL;DR: Background Jobs let you execute any Alter Action silently in the background without a conversation window. Perfect for grammar correction, customer support automation, and instant recommendations. Plus tons of fixes and new models including GPT-5.1, GLM 4.6, and Kimi K2 Thinking.

New Features & Enhancements

• Background Jobs: Enable background jobs for everyone to execute Alter Actions silently without a conversation window
• New Models: Added support for GPT-5.1, GLM 4.6, and Kimi K2 Thinking
• Editor: Can set temperature for actions
• Voice Triggers: Added flexible match at end for voice triggers
• Dictation & Speech: Disabled cleanup for speech-to-prompt, better cleanup prompt and a way to disable the cleanup completely
• Chat: No more auto resizing of the chat window and smoother auto scroll behavior when entering a new message
• Actions: Added “what to watch” action
• Push to Prompt: Display a notification when there is no text detected
• Billing: Can buy a plan from the website
• App Sense: Improved link serialization, and better regular window detection
• Tools: Improved Quick Actions for tool usage
• Settings: Separate blocks for local and local+ processors in the Voice tab
• Flow: Better tool lookup

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Crash Fixes: Resolved crashes in mic and system audio processor dealloc, mic indicator (NaN/infinity audio level values), model parameter view model deinit, tool gallery (empty path stack), application observer starting, action editor when changing actions, and during autoresizing of the chat panel
• Data Races: Fixed data races in installed apps, models, and active app name, pasteboard and audio.
• Notch: Fixed obnoxious notch input cursor position
• Threading: Enforced main thread while message streaming
• Library Updates: Updated tool client library to avoid crash on connection cancellation

Teach Alter Your Defaults

TL;DR: Control Alter settings directly from chat with the new Manage Settings tool. Update your profile, appearance, model parameters, and preferences without leaving your conversation. Plus Flow tool for multi-step tasks, improved onboarding, Apple login, and comprehensive stability fixes.

New Features & Enhancements

• Manage Settings Tool: Read and update Alter settings from any chat window, including profile, appearance, model parameters, notifications, and analytics preferences
• Scroll Tool: Added scroll tool with improved browser compatibility
• Get Active App Context Tool: New tool to retrieve context from the currently active application
• Wait Tool: Added wait tool for timing control in tool sequences
• Login With Apple: Added “login with Apple” support with improved webview experience
• Onboarding: Brand-new onboarding experience with tutorial and improved flow
• Action-Driven Dictation Cleanup: Dictation cleanup is now driven by an Alter Action for better customization
• Audio Ducking: More sensible audio ducking during dictation to improve quality
• Audio Processors: Use different audio processors for dictation and meetings

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Race Conditions: Fixed multiple race conditions
• Crash Fixes: Resolved crashes when restoring clipboard, capturing window images, listing windows, default audio processor, recording history, and analytics capture
• Notch: More reliable notch-closing behavior, fixed focus issues after selecting a model, improved hover delay, and better handling when clicking outside
• Voice: Fixed data race on keywords flag, improved transcript indexing, better error reporting for invalid audio files and removed hesitation parts of speech in English
• Audio Recording: Fixed echo in meetings, improved handling of low audio detection, and better error reporting for empty audio files
• Conversations: Fixed concurrency issues when renaming conversations and improved context handling
• IME: Fixed cursor position issues and input method suggestions
• API & Endpoints: Better error handling for API errors with body, fixed custom endpoints for Gemini, OpenAI, and OpenRouter
• Voice Triggers: Fixed automatic context addition issue
• JXA: Fixed bad access crashes

Introducing Live Notepad

TL;DR: Live Notepad turns passive live sessions into active intelligence. Real-time transcript + screenshots + questions + tool integrations = you play at a next level. Take notes, create tasks, build knowledge—all while staying present in the conversation.

New Features & Enhancements

• Live Notepad: Real-time AI assistant during meetings and videos with a toggle shortcut (default: cmd+shift+→)
• Screen Sharing Privacy: Option to hide Alter from screen sharing
• Screenshot in Conversations: Added screenshot capabilities directly within conversation windows

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Live Captions: Disabled for non-WhisperKit Pro users to prevent recording errors
• Conversation Renaming: Fixed issues when renaming conversations in the notch
• Conversation Window: Adding context now properly updates the context strip
• Transcript Actions: Fixed trash icon functionality in recent transcripts
• Audio Recording: Notification after 2 minutes of low audio detection
• Context Menu: Action line is now fully clickable
• Apple Calendar & Notes: Better descriptions for better accuracy at tool use

Performance Improvements

• Notch Opening: Minor performance improvements when opening the notch
• Recording Start: Reduced startup time when beginning a recording
• Main Thread: Avoided blocking main thread for more than 3 seconds when fetching keywords

Introducing Live Captions

TL;DR: You know those YouTube subtitles everyone loves? Now they work for every app on your Mac. Live Captions = real-time subtitles for meetings, podcasts, streams, everything. Auto-detects language, runs locally, fully customizable.

New Features & Enhancements

• Live Captions: Real-time transcription display during meetings with a toggle shortcut (default: cmd+shift+↓)
• Voice Recording: New shortcuts and menubar buttons for starting/stopping/cancelling recordings
• Voice Settings UI: Put shortcuts in their own window
• Models: Welcome to Claude Haiku 4.5

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Audio Processing: Fixed handling of large 2-channel 48000 kHz audio files
• Clipboard: Prevented interference with complex clipboard data
• Notch Behavior: Notch now closes when frontmost app changes away from Alter
• Tools: Connection to Google Apps was failing or timing out

3000 tokens/s, welcome Alter Fast

TL;DR: You can now use Alter Fast as a model router, a handpicked selection of the market’s fastest models. Be aware, speed is addictive

New Features & Enhancements

• Models: Introduced a fast Alter model pipeline with smart auto‑selection and 3000 tokens/second
• Notch Cursor: Added proper text field keyboard navigation in the notch
• Dictation: Now replacements respect word boundaries

Bug Fixes & Stability

• Notch & Windows: Kept Alter windows in front when closing the notch
• Infrastructure: Optimized load balancers configuration and grace periods during streaming on sigterm signals
• Conversations: Multiple crash fixes, fixed the invisible draggable area while minimized and better support of streaming finish reasons
• Models & Endpoints: Fixed custom endpoint where an empty URL produced an empty model list
• Audio & Recording: Mitigated a double‑free audio crash and the recording clock
• Core & Startup: Improved error reporting when Core Data fails and prevented crashes on MCP Client start errors