Changelog
22 releases since July 2026 ยท RSS
BeaconFind updates often, and updates install quietly from inside the app. This is every release, newest first, drawn from the same record the updater uses.
v1.32 releases6 September 2026Latest
Whole-PC indexing finds your own files again
Two fixes for the first index of a whole PC: a user folder whose name differs from the account name was skipped, and choosing My whole PC from the setup wizard opened in Settings did nothing.
Improved
- If no drive can be added, the app says so instead of staying silent, and the log records what the whole-PC step did.
Fixed
- Your own user folder was skipped when its folder name differs from your account name (Windows appends a digit when a folder with the same name already existed). The whole-PC index then finished within seconds with almost nothing in it.
- "My whole PC" chosen in the setup wizard opened from Settings did nothing and the wizard went back to Settings. It now adds your drives, starts indexing and takes you to Home, where the progress shows.
A simpler first run, calmer indexing, and search that finds codes
Setup is five steps and indexes your everyday documents across the whole PC in minutes, search works while it runs, the app stays quiet while it indexes, and serial numbers, error codes and dates now match however they are written. Crash reports can be sent automatically once you say yes.
New
- Setup in five steps. Pick "My whole PC" and BeaconFind indexes your everyday documents, photos and mail from every drive, skipping system and program folders. Search works within seconds of starting; the rest fills in while you keep working. "My home folders" and "Folders I pick" are there for people who want less, and a machine with little memory starts on home folders.
- One switch in Settings, "Show advanced options", hides the power-user controls. Nothing is removed; everything comes back when you flip it. The search shortcut sits in the title bar so it is never forgotten.
- Report a problem from inside the app, under Settings, Help & Support: a short description, an optional email, and, if you tick it, the app's own log with file names and search text removed. A crash shows a one-line card on the next start.
- Automatic crash and error reports, if you say yes once. From then on a crash report goes out on the next start and an error report at most once a day, always with file names and searches removed. Turn it off any time under Help & Support.
- Word 97-2003 documents, PowerPoint 97-2003 decks and Outlook .msg files are read by content, not just by name.
Improved
- Serial numbers, error codes, product codes and dates match whether they are written with dashes, dots or spaces, and a code broken across two lines in a PDF is found as one.
- Chunks follow the paragraphs of your documents instead of cutting through them, so answers and previews land on the right passage.
- Indexing no longer stutters the machine: the index is written to disk every few minutes instead of every few seconds, and reading your files runs at background priority so your other programs get the disk first.
- Mac: indexing uses far less memory. A 3,000-file test folder used to push an 8 GB MacBook Air into heavy swapping; it now stays well inside memory.
- Image results show small thumbnails made by the app instead of loading the full-size photos, so a page of photo results is light on memory on every machine.
- The help button lives in the search bar next to Ask, on both the search window and the in-app search.
- A calmer Home page with one progress card and one time estimate, an "index now or schedule" choice when you add a folder, a Quiet, Balanced or Fast control for how hard indexing works while you are at the machine, and a lighter glass behind the search window.
Fixed
- Mac: opening the search window repeatedly made the Mac slower each time; a blur layer was added on every open and never removed.
- Mac: image previews and thumbnails could freeze the app on an SVG file in search results.
- The Home page and the file-types tab no longer flash for a moment when they open.
- Several dozen smaller fixes to modals, keyboard focus and contrast.
v1.25 releases9 August to 1 September 2026
Freezes fixed
Three ways BeaconFind could lock up are gone: activating your licence no longer overloads the machine, an SVG file can no longer freeze the app, and the Mac search overlay opens properly.
Fixed
- Activating your licence could bring the whole computer to a halt for a couple of minutes. Everything BeaconFind had been holding back was starting at the same instant; the AI models now load one after another instead of all at once, and background summaries wait until the app has settled.
- A single SVG file in one of your folders could freeze the app. Previews and thumbnails no longer hand SVG files to the browser engine to draw.
- Mac: the search overlay could open showing only its blurred backdrop, with the search box missing.
- Mac: the menu-bar popup now closes when you click the icon again.
- The status bar could show "Finishing search index" indefinitely when nothing was running.
Trackpad gestures, and two fixes
Pinch to zoom and two-finger pan now work in previews, the status bar stops claiming work that is not happening, and the menu-bar popup closes when you click it again.
New
- Pinch to zoom in file previews, on both a Mac trackpad and a Windows precision touchpad. PDFs re-render as you zoom so they stay sharp, and images zoom around your pointer.
Fixed
- Two-finger scrolling on an image preview now pans it instead of zooming.
- The status bar could show "Finishing search index" indefinitely when nothing was running. It now only appears while the index is genuinely being built.
- The menu-bar popup can be closed by clicking the icon again. It could previously get stuck open.
Works on many more graphics cards
BeaconFind now uses the GPU on far more NVIDIA cards, and tells you exactly what to do when a driver is holding it back.
Improved
- GPU acceleration now works on NVIDIA cards going back to the GTX 16 and RTX 20 series. Older cards were quietly falling back to the CPU, which made everything slower.
- If your graphics driver is too old for AI chat, Settings now says so plainly, names your driver version, and links straight to the update instead of showing an error code.
Fixed
- AI chat and summaries no longer fail outright when the GPU refuses them. They fall back to the CPU so the feature still works while you update.
Mac search overlay fixes
Two fixes for the Ctrl+K overlay on Mac: it now follows your license straight away, and it no longer appears on its own.
Fixed
- Mac: the search overlay could keep asking you to activate after you had already activated. It now updates the moment your license changes.
- Mac: making a window fullscreen could make the search overlay appear by itself.
- The overlay now picks up theme, AI tier, app mode and filter changes from the main window every time it opens, instead of only after it regained focus.
Ask your files
Grounded answers over your own documents, with the source file cited for every answer, and a full in-app Search view alongside Ctrl+K.
New
- Ask your files: answers drawn from your documents, each citing the file it came from.
- An in-app Search view with the same filters, previews and actions as Ctrl+K.
Improved
- Previews for large spreadsheets and documents are far faster, with no more freezing.
- Better filtering throughout.
Fixed
- Stopping an index run now says Stopping while it finishes the current batch, instead of claiming it already stopped.
v1.17 releases23 July to 1 August 2026
Good on machines without a GPU
Makes BeaconFind work well on PCs without a compatible NVIDIA GPU.
Improved
- Heavy AI work no longer runs during indexing on the CPU, so indexing stays fast and the app stays responsive.
- The installer no longer downloads anything during setup, so it installs without a connection.
- Settings now names the specific CUDA runtime to install if you have an NVIDIA GPU.
Runs on PCs without CUDA
Fixes a bug where BeaconFind showed a permanent Model Error and never finished loading on PCs without the NVIDIA CUDA runtime, which is most computers.
Fixed
- BeaconFind now detects this and runs on your CPU automatically, so search and indexing work everywhere.
- If you do have an NVIDIA GPU, Settings shows how to turn on GPU acceleration.
Ask and walk away
Chat now runs in the background. Ask a question, close the search bar, and keep working. Windows tells you when the answer is ready, and it is waiting when you reopen.
New
- Answers survive an app restart.
Improved
- Chat and search read tables and invoices by their real layout, so a label and its number stay together instead of drifting apart.
- Stronger cross-language search: search in one language, find files in another.
- The finished answer appears at once with a smooth reveal, and a live status shows whether BeaconFind is searching, reading or writing.
Fixed
- File type filters no longer return the wrong file types.
Summaries run to completion
The AI summary queue now runs steadily at a gentle pace while you use your PC, instead of waiting until you step away. Pausing or stopping it frees its memory right away.
Hands memory back to Windows
BeaconFind returns idle memory to Windows when it stops working, after a background task finishes, on a switch to Performance or Gaming mode, or when minimised to the tray. It warms back up instantly on your next search.
A lighter footprint
Your index, settings and licence carry over automatically.
Improved
- Much lower GPU memory when idle. The image and language models are freed when unused and reload instantly on demand.
- AI summaries run on a lighter model in the background, so they no longer peg the GPU while you work.
- A smoother interface while indexing.
Your PC stays responsive
BeaconFind now notices when you are at the machine and eases off background work by itself. Indexing runs at full speed while you are away and gets out of the way the moment you come back.
New
- A resource governor that yields to you. Games, video and fullscreen presentations take priority, and it backs off on battery.
- Repair Image Search in Settings, Advanced, to re-run photo understanding on a library indexed before this release.
- A Stop button while an answer is streaming.
Improved
- Photos and screenshots now reliably get their visual description and image embedding while indexing, so searching by what a picture shows works properly.
- When a search finds nothing, BeaconFind explains why instead of suggesting different keywords when nothing is indexed yet.
- The first-run model download keeps retrying instead of giving up, and reports honestly while it works.
- The application itself is now code signed, not just the installer.
Fixed
- Closing the chat or the search window actually stops the answer being generated, instead of leaving it running.
- Your settings are protected if a start-up read is slow. Your hotkey, start-with-Windows setting and excluded file types can no longer be reset.
v1.08 releases9 July to 14 July 2026
Code-signed installers
Windows now shows a verified publisher instead of an unknown-publisher warning when you install or update. No functional changes.
Previews restored
Preview rendering and the AI summary queue both behave again.
Fixed
- PDFs, video and audio render again in the preview panel.
- The AI summaries card could freeze near the end of a folder. It now finishes and hides.
- The Index page no longer briefly shows no folders while the index is still loading.
Image search model loading
Everything from 1.0.4, plus a fix for the image model getting stuck during indexing.
Fixed
- The image search model could stay on Loading after startup while files were indexing. Model downloads now share one connection and load reliably.
Important reliability update
Recommended for everyone. A startup race could leave the AI models stuck loading and index your files without semantic understanding, so searches only matched exact words.
New
- Automatic index repair: any files indexed while the AI was not ready are detected and re-processed in the background. No manual re-index needed.
Fixed
- Indexing now always waits for the AI models to be ready.
- Launching the app manually keeps the window open instead of minimising to the tray. Autostart still begins quietly in the tray.
- Library statistics could show zero files while indexing was running.
Silent updates and a more native feel
Updates stop interrupting you, and the app stops behaving like a web page.
Improved
- Updates install silently in the background, with no installer window.
- A dismissed update stays available in Settings, Updates, with an Install button.
- A cleaner update notification design.
Fixed
- Right-clicking no longer shows a browser menu. Copy still works everywhere, including in text fields.
- Browser shortcuts such as reload, print and the find bar no longer interfere with the app.
Setup and preview fixes
A round of fixes to first-run setup and the preview panel.
Fixed
- The sidebar and About page now show the real version instead of an outdated number after an update.
- The main window stays visible on launch until first-time setup is done, so the wizard cannot end up hidden in the tray.
- The AI summary banner no longer flickers while your files are being indexed.
- The indexing notice in the search overlay no longer blinks between stages.
- The preview details strip no longer jumps around as information loads.
Reliability and a big AI chat pass
The first update after launch: steadier behaviour throughout, and a substantial rework of how chat finds and reads the right documents.
Improved
- Chat grounds its answers in the right documents far more often, and straightforward questions start answering in about 1.5 seconds.
- Duplicate copies of a file no longer crowd the real answer out of the context.
- Modified images fully re-index again: description, text recognition and visual search all refresh.
- A fresh look for the installer.
Fixed
- Command windows no longer flash on screen during background work.
- Launching BeaconFind again focuses the existing window instead of starting a second, conflicting copy.
- Answers no longer cut off mid-sentence.
- The search overlay no longer flashes on screen for a moment at startup.
- The preview panel no longer pushes its buttons off screen on long PDFs.
First public release
Private, on-device AI file search for Windows. Press Ctrl+K and find anything by meaning, across 70+ file types and 50+ languages. Your files, their contents and your searches stay on your machine.
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