Release notes

Current version: 1.0.4. MacGaze checks for updates automatically every four hours while it is running, and always asks before installing one , nothing here happens silently. You can also choose Check for Updates… from the menu bar any time.

1.0.4 , 26 August 2026

• Fixed: the "Show MacGaze in the Dock" switch closed the whole panel instead of just flipping. Changing whether the app has a Dock icon makes macOS take focus away from whatever panel is open as a side effect, which used to mean the switch's new position only became visible once you opened the panel again from scratch. It now reopens itself immediately, so the switch looks like it flips in place.
• Fixed: the panel was slow to open. A single settings check the panel ran every time it opened was a synchronous round trip to a system service, and that one is genuinely slow , tens of milliseconds routinely. It is now read once at launch and kept in sync from the one place that actually changes it, so opening the panel no longer waits on it.

1.0.3 , 26 August 2026

• Fixed: the menu bar panel would not open at all while another app was full screen. Full screen puts that app in its own Space, and a custom panel needs to explicitly ask permission to appear there , the system menu bar gets this for free, a panel built on top of it does not. It now asks.
• Changed: automatic update checks moved from once a day to every four hours, so a fix does not sit unnoticed on the server for most of a day on a Mac that is rarely quit. This only affects how often MacGaze checks , it still always shows the normal "an update is available" prompt and waits for you to say yes, exactly as before.

1.0.2 , 24 August 2026

• Fixed: the menu bar panel now drops down cleanly from the icon, instead of popping up from the middle of the screen.
• Fixed: opening the panel no longer asks for your MacGaze password. That password is meant to protect changing your face or saved password, not simply looking at the menu.
• Fixed: clicking anywhere outside the panel now closes it, rather than needing a second click on the icon.
• Fixed: the panel could briefly refuse to reopen for a couple of seconds right after being closed. It opens and closes normally now, including under fast repeated clicking.
• Fixed: the success animation could occasionally be cut off mid-flourish instead of retracting smoothly. It now starts closing the instant your Mac actually unlocks, rather than guessing on a fixed timer that could already be too late.
• Changed: a corrected bug in the update feed itself meant some installs could report "you're already up to date" when a newer version genuinely existed. Fixed for every release from here on.

1.0.1 , 23 August 2026

• Added: automatic background updates, built on Sparkle. MacGaze can now update itself in place instead of asking you to come back to this site and download again by hand.

1.0 , 23 August 2026

• First release: face unlock for macOS.

MacGaze is not notarised yet, so installing an update still needs the same one-time-per-version trip through System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway that a first install does , Sparkle removes "go back to the site and download it again", not that step. See the install guide if you have not seen it before.