An AI app is remembered by its code signature, not by its path: an update of Claude Code, or its copy inside the VS Code extension, no longer asks to be allowed again. The Security framework validates the connecting program's signature (a certificate Apple issued), and the user's answer is kept by its Team ID and signing identifier. A program without such a signature is still remembered by where it is.
A photo or file that you cleared from the media cache is downloaded again when it is looked at; cleared profile photos showed blurred, in their small size, until now.
Telegram's media cache is now ~/Documents/FinchGram/media_cache, where you can see it and clear it; what you clear is fetched again when you look at it. The old cache under ~/Library/Application Support/FinchGram/tdlib (photos, videos and the other media folders) stays until you delete it yourself. WebDAV downloads go to ~/Documents/FinchGram/webdav/<server>/, a folder per server. Removing a stopped download from the list deletes its partial files; Cancel keeps them for Retry. Your WebDAV servers and the programs allowed at AI access live in FinchGram's encrypted database now; the programs ask once more, so Claude Code and the others will ask to be allowed again when they connect. A link whose words are not its address asks before it opens, showing the site and the whole address. Resuming a download checks that the file is the same one, from the same place; a second download with the same name waits for the first.
The WebDAV server form says in red, under the password, that over http the password and the files travel in the clear, so that an http server is a choice made knowingly; its introduction now says where the password is kept.
FinchGram has a database of its own now: finchgram.db next to settings.toml, encrypted as a whole, with its key in the Keychain. Your WebDAV servers and their passwords move into it the first time this version starts; settings.toml keeps only your preferences. macOS may ask once more for the login keychain's password while the old items are read. Telegram's own database is encrypted too from now on, with a key of its own in the Keychain. Downloads: a file that does not fit on the disk is refused before it starts, and one of unknown size stops before the disk is full. AI access: at most 32 connections at once, and one that says nothing for two minutes before initialize is closed.
Signed with North Brookville LLC's Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple: a downloaded copy opens like any other app, with no "Open Anyway" step. The hardened runtime is on. Because the signature's team changed, macOS asks once more for the Screen Recording permission the screenshot tool uses, and once more before reading the WebDAV password from the Keychain; "Always Allow" holds from now on.
Security fixes, the second batch of the 2026-10-17 audit:
- Downloads: a 206 answer must carry the bytes asked for (its Content-Range and Content-Length are checked), or it is tried again and nothing of it is written; a listing's body has an idle and a total time limit; a folder download lists at most 100,000 files and 64 folders deep; the .part and .part.json files are never opened through a symbolic link; the log shows addresses without their account or query.
- AI access: a connection's line is limited to 1 MB; a program the system cannot name is allowed for its own process only, and one it cannot place at all is turned away; the settings are read again before each side effect of a call already under way; what a client says of itself cannot write lines of its own into the log.
- Sending: a pasted picture or a screenshot is deleted when the card is cancelled, and each video's still is made in a folder of its own.
Security fixes, the first batch of the 2026-10-17 audit:
- A WebDAV server cannot name a file so that it lands outside the download folder: names that are paths ("..", "/tmp/x") are left out of listings and refused again before anything is written.
- The account's credentials stay on the origin they were given for: a redirect to another scheme, host or port goes without them, and a redirect from https to http is refused.
- What you allow AI assistants is bound to the Telegram account signed in: when another account logs in, every app asks again and the chosen chats start empty.
- Every GitHub Action the build workflows use is pinned to a commit.
- The open access list on the Keychain item goes: it did not stop the password prompt, which waits for a Developer ID signature
- Clear finished, a button at the head of the queue, takes every finished download off the list at once
Downloads keep to vget's parameters: 12 streams, 8 MB chunks, and nothing asked of the server beyond the chunks themselves, so a server that answers 503 when pressed is no longer pressed; "Server busy" is shown only once a server has been busy for five seconds.
A WebDAV server's password no longer makes macOS ask for the login keychain's password after every update: the Keychain item is stored under an access list that asks nothing (an item kept by an earlier version is moved to it the first time it is read, which may ask one last time).
Downloads: a server that answers 503 (PikPak while it fetches a file from cold storage, or when pressed) is waited for, up to five minutes, with "Server busy, trying again…" shown, instead of the file stopping after ten tries; 12 streams by default again; the protocol is no longer shown beside the speed.
Downloads: a file starts with its first chunk instead of a probe, one round trip less per file.
Downloads: a stream that crawls while the others run is given another connection, and the speed shown is averaged over ten seconds.
Downloads: idle streams take over the tail of a file instead of waiting for the slowest connection to finish its last chunk, and a file uses 24 streams by default. Measured on a 1 GB PikPak file: 60 MB/s on average against 35 to 40 before, 90 to 120 MB/s while the bytes flow.
Downloads: a whole folder comes several files at a time (its tree listed several folders at a time too), chunks grow to 32 MB for large files, the speed says what the server speaks, "24.3 MB/s (HTTP/2)", and downloads.log next to settings.toml records every request for finding out why a server is slow.
Downloads speak HTTP/2 now, where the server offers it: PikPak and similar servers answer each range slowly, and over HTTP/2 the twelve streams share one connection that never idles, which doubles the speed. HTTP/1.1 stays for servers without it. A certificate the Mac trusts (Keychain Access → Always Trust) passes now.
Downloads: a folder whose name is a whole sentence (PikPak has those) no longer pushes the page off the window; the path row cuts it short.
A minimized window comes back when the Dock icon is clicked or FinchGram is opened again.
Downloads: a 404 from a CDN node that does not have the file yet (PikPak does that), or a failed probe, no longer stops a file; everything but a disk problem is tried again, up to ten times with a growing pause.
Downloads: files come faster, and a download no longer stops when the window loses focus.
- Every 8 MB chunk opened a new connection, with its TLS handshake and TCP slow start; connections are now kept and reused, as vget does, which roughly doubles the speed on a far server.
- A throttling server (429) or a stray 200 no longer stops a file: everything but 401, 403, 404 and a disk problem is tried again, up to ten times with a growing pause.
- While a file is on its way the app tells macOS it is busy, so App Nap does not slow it in the background and the Mac does not sleep on its own.
The Downloads page shows where you are as a path, "Home NAS /Movies/2026", instead of crumbs with ›; each folder of it is a step back. The folder's name under it is now as small as the toolbar's words.
Downloads: a WebDAV client in the media center.
- View → Downloads (⌥⌘L), or the download icon above the gear: add WebDAV servers (a NAS, a seedbox, PikPak, Alist/OpenList, Nextcloud, rclone serve webdav, or a folder shared with vget serve), browse their folders, filter by name, and download files or whole folders into ~/Downloads/FinchGram. The page needs no Telegram account.
- Each file comes in 8 MB chunks over up to twelve connections, written into a .part file that goes on from where it stopped after a Retry; a server without Range support gets one connection. Two files at a time, the rest wait.
- The queue on the right shows the speed and the time left, with Cancel, Retry, Show in Finder and Remove from list; Hide folds it away. Photos and videos open in the media viewer when they arrive; other files are shown in the Finder.
- Passwords are kept in the macOS Keychain, never in a file; the servers and the downloads folder are in settings.toml.
- In all three themes and eleven languages. docs/downloads.md has the details. A self-signed https certificate is refused for now: use http on the LAN, or a real certificate.
Media viewer: the previous and next arrows are a strip over either side of the picture in every theme, as wide as the arrow with a little room around it, lit under the pointer. At the first and the last item the strip stays, dimmed, so a click there no longer closes the viewer. The close button is a filled circle, apart from the other buttons; Terminal's [esc] is in the accent like its other buttons.
- The folder's menu flat: Sort by is a group of three choices, not a second page
- Sort by, in a folder's menu: the latest message, name or unread, under the pinned chats
- No "Mark as read" for a single chat: opening it reads it
- A folder's menu marks all its chats as read; Copy ID in a chat's menus and on the profile page
The app is its usual size again: v0.3.25 carried the bundled fonts twice (39 MB more) through a build-time accident, now ruled out; the bundle script checks the size.
send_message answers with the message's final id, once Telegram has confirmed it, so that delete_message and the other tools can take it; before, it gave TDLib's temporary id.
A new MCP tool, delete_message: an assistant that may send messages may also delete a message the account sent, for everyone where Telegram allows it (any time in private chats, within 48 hours in groups), never someone else's. Logged on the AI access page.
Settings → AI access: the Send messages choice says only "Sent at once, under your name"; a message an assistant sends can be deleted like any other, so nothing is said about undoing. The same in the instructions an assistant receives.
AI access: an app kept under its version number (Claude Code's ~/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.296) is remembered by the folder that holds every version, so an update of the app does not ask to be allowed again.
Settings → AI access, from the design, in every theme: the switch for the MCP server, which chats an assistant may see (with a picker), what it may write, the apps that have connected (allowed or turned away, remembered by the path macOS reports, with Remove and Allow), the lines to paste into Claude Code or Claude Desktop, and a log of what assistants asked for. The first time an app connects, FinchGram asks whether to allow it, naming the program as macOS reports it. In 11 languages; README and docs updated.
The MCP server: AI assistants' apps (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, …) read the user's chats and act in them through the running FinchGram, over the Model Context Protocol. The app's executable with the word mcp (FinchGram.app/Contents/MacOS/finchgram mcp) is the stdio bridge to put in the assistant's configuration; it starts FinchGram when needed. Off until [mcp] enabled = true in settings.toml; Settings → AI access comes with its design. Eleven tools: list, search and read chats and messages, what is unread, a message's media, drafts, sending, marking as read. Secret chats are never shown, reading never marks anything as read, and self-destructing media and the media of chats that restrict saving are never handed out. docs/mcp.md has the details.
The screenshot tool's mosaic hides more: the medium and large sizes now paint 8 pt and 12 pt blocks (the small one keeps 4 pt), so what is under them no longer shows through.
- Search in a chat (⌘F) in every theme; Terminal gets the search box, and Workbench's title bar names the app
- Saved Messages is a fixed row at the top of the chat list in every theme, there before you have used it, and no longer repeated in the folders below.
- Searching chats matches the names shown (Saved Messages, Deleted Account) rather than Telegram's own titles, so typing "saved" finds Saved Messages; Enter in the search opens it when it matches.
Every input's text cursor is now a thicker bar in the accent colour, so that it can be seen. Workbench and Broadsheet painted it in their pale selection colour, which macOS uses for the cursor too; the selection itself stays pale.
- docs/media-files.md: what is kept, what is fetched when, and what is still to do about fetching ahead, playing while downloading and storage
- A video the size of the one before no longer stays on its still while it plays
- The media viewer's volume: a tray out of the speaker on hover, ↑ ↓ and the wheel, kept for the next video and the next start
- Terminal: a channel you only read has no message input, and so no blinking cursor; [mute] / [unmute] stands after the prompt instead
- Settings → Appearance and the View menu list the themes as Workbench, Terminal, Broadsheet
- The unread chats are no longer gathered at the top of the chat list, and the Unread page is gone: the list stays in Telegram's order
- Terminal: a chat's kind is shown with the same icons as the other themes (person, group, channel, bot, saved messages), a pin before a pinned chat; the text cursor is green and can be seen
- Workbench: the dot on the channels button counts only channels that are not muted
- Terminal: the chat list's foot is one line, as tall as the command line: your name, then the profile and the settings as icons in brackets; the coloured square and the words "Current account" are gone
- Terminal: the command line no longer repeats the chat's name
- Terminal: the folder tabs (0:Unread, 1:All, more) take clicks again, and the chat list's head is evenly spaced
- Terminal: [settings] at the foot of the chat list, under [profile]
- Light or dark is each theme's own choice now, kept when switching themes; Terminal starts dark
- The unread chats gathered at the top of the list, and an Unread page that indexes their newest unread messages
- The screenshot overlay comes up without a shake, under a crosshair, and without tooltips
- The screenshot overlay reaches the top of the display
The interface now speaks eleven languages: Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic join English and Simplified Chinese, chosen from the system language or in Settings → Language. The fonts for Japanese, Korean and Arabic ship with the app.
Screenshots: the overlay appears sooner (every display is captured at once, uncompressed), covers the whole display including the menu bar, shows the crosshair at once, and dims the whole screen until you drag a selection; a click still takes the window under the pointer whole. Done is a check mark in the theme's colour.
Settings → About shows how much of an update has been downloaded, in megabytes, next to the percentage.
The screenshot toolbar is as wide as its buttons need: Done no longer overflows it or gets cut off at the screen's edge. Mosaic blocks are finer, 4 pt instead of 8.
Screen Recording stays allowed across updates. Releases are now signed with the project's own certificate, the same every time; every build used to carry a signature of its own, which macOS no longer recognised after an update, so the screenshot tool asked for the permission again and again while System Settings showed it on. One last time after this update: if FinchGram is already in the Screen Recording list, turn it off and on again (or remove it and let FinchGram ask once more), then quit and reopen FinchGram. The permission card now says so too.
Screenshots: a drag from a lit window makes a selection, and a click takes the window, as it should have from the start. The FinchGram window no longer hides while a screenshot is taken: the switch in Settings → General → Screenshots is now off by default, and when the window shows it can be taken like any other. The READMEs present the project in eleven languages.
The screenshot tool: the scissors in the composer, or ⌘⇧A, take a piece of the screen, with rectangles, ellipses, arrows, pen strokes, text and mosaic drawn on it, into the send card, the clipboard or Downloads; Settings → General → Screenshots holds the shortcut and whether the window hides meanwhile. Photos, videos and files are sent from the paperclip, by dragging them onto the window, or by pasting them. A chat's menu now blocks or unblocks a user, reports the chat, leaves a group or channel, and deletes a chat.
- Photos and videos sent to self-destruct open once, and the viewer saves only what may be saved
- Settings → General: the icon in the menu bar is on by default
- Chats, bots, channels and people show their photos instead of a letter
A right click on a chat in the list can now put it into one of your folders, or take it out: Add to folder, in the chat's menu, lists your folders, with those the chat is in ticked. In all three themes.
- The open chat: a long or busy chat no longer freezes the window
FinchGram 0.2.10: muting from a tab.
- Right-click a tab in Workbench to mute or unmute its chat; the entry sits above the ones that close tabs.
FinchGram 0.2.9: the media viewer with long captions.
- A photo or video with a long caption is shown as large as the others again, in the middle of the viewer, with the caption's first lines under it. It used to sit small at the top, with a blank below.
FinchGram 0.2.8: closing tabs.
- Right-click a tab in Workbench to close it, close the other tabs, or close all tabs.
FinchGram 0.2.7: typing.
- While you write a message, the chat shows that you are typing, as in Telegram's own apps. Clearing what you wrote takes it back; editing a message does not count.
FinchGram 0.2.6: notifications.
- New messages show as macOS notifications; click one to open its chat. Muted chats stay quiet, and a notification goes away once its message is read, here or on another device.
- The Dock icon shows how many messages are unread, and bounces when one arrives while FinchGram is in the background.
- Settings → Notifications & sounds: desktop notifications, message previews, sounds, the Dock icon's bounce, counting muted chats, and whether private chats, groups and channels notify you (Telegram's own setting for your account).
- You now show as online while FinchGram's window is in front and in use, as in Telegram's own apps.
- The first time, macOS asks whether FinchGram may send notifications.
FinchGram 0.2.5: what can be done with a message.
- Right-click a message for its menu: reply, edit, copy its text or its link, copy or save a photo or video, forward, report, delete, or select it. The menu offers only what Telegram allows for that message.
- Replies show the message they answer; click it to jump there.
- Edit your last message with ↑ in an empty message box; its formatting is kept.
- Forward messages to any chat or to Saved Messages, with or without the sender's name.
- Select several messages (Shift-click for a range) to forward, copy, delete or report them together.
- Forwarded messages say who first wrote them, and read-only channels have a Mute button at the bottom (Workbench and Broadsheet).
FinchGram 0.2.4: formatted messages, links and link previews.
- Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, code and links in messages show as they were written.
- Links can be clicked: web and mail links open in your browser or mail app; @mentions and t.me links open the chat in FinchGram.
- Link previews show under their messages, as cards made from Telegram's own previews.
- Broadsheet's chat list header matches the design again: the search box and the folder tabs have their spacing back.
FinchGram 0.2.3: Settings → General.
- Launch at login (macOS 13 and later).
- Show FinchGram in the menu bar, with a menu to open it or quit.
- Choose what closing the window does: keep FinchGram running in the Dock, or quit.
- Send with Enter can be turned off: then ⌘Enter sends and Enter starts a new line.
FinchGram 0.2.2: stickers, pinned chats on top, and a window that stays.
- Videos play the right way up.
- Stickers show in chats; animated ones show a still picture for now.
- Workbench lists pinned chats at the top, outside the folders.
- Right-click a chat in the list for its menu: mute, pin, mark as read.
- The video player keeps its controls right under the video, whatever its shape.
- Closing the window keeps FinchGram running in the Dock: click the Dock icon to bring it back, ⌘Q to quit.
FinchGram 0.2.1: a list as wide as you like.
- Drag the edge between the chat list and the chat to make the list wider or narrower; each theme keeps its own width.
- The lists show no scrollbars, as in the design; they scroll as before.
FinchGram 0.2.0: photos and videos.
- Photos, videos and GIFs show in the chats, in all three themes; an album is one grid, and Terminal lists them as lines.
- A media viewer over the whole window: go through the chat's photos and videos with the arrows or the strip below, zoom into photos, save to Downloads, or find the message in the chat.
- Videos play in the app, through mpv (libmpv, built by this repository from pinned sources): play and pause, seek, speed, mute. GIFs loop.
- A login left half done is no longer resumed at the next start: logging in begins again at the phone number, as in Telegram's own desktop app.
FinchGram 0.1.1: two-step verification and signing up.
- Forgot your two-step verification password? "Forgot password?" sends a code to your recovery email and lets you set a new one; without that address, the account can be reset.
- A number without an account can sign up with just a name.
- Settings > Privacy & security > Two-step verification: set, change or turn off the password, edit its hint and the recovery email, or request a reset. The other privacy settings are greyed out for now.
- A login code sent by SMS says so, and the settings pages take the design's width.
FinchGram 0.1.0: the design arrives.
- Sign in with your phone number (code, two-step password, login email) or with a QR code.
- Your chats and folders, with unread counts and search; read and send text messages.
- Channels open in reading mode; Telegram's sponsored messages are shown as they come.
- Three themes from the design: Workbench (the default), Broadsheet and Terminal. Switch them in Settings > Appearance or the View menu; light, dark, or matching the system.
- Settings: appearance, language (English, Simplified Chinese), about and updates. Profile: edit your name, username and bio, or log out.
- Photos and files, several accounts, keyword filters and scheduled messages come next; they are greyed out for now.
The first build of FinchGram. It starts TDLib 1.8.67 and shows how far it is with Telegram; there is no login page yet. From this version on, the app updates itself.