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Updating Mel

How updates work and how to get the latest version.

Mel can update itself in place, and you can always grab a fresh build by hand. This page explains how releases ship and both ways to move to a new version.

How releases ship

Every Mel release is built by CI from a version tag. The pipeline builds all three platforms in one go:

  • macOS — a universal app (Apple Silicon + Intel), as the disk image Mel-macos.dmg and as Mel-macos.zip.
  • Windows — mel.exe for x64 PCs, as Mel-windows-x86_64-setup.exe and Mel-windows-x86_64.zip, and a native build for Windows on ARM (Snapdragon), as Mel-windows-aarch64-setup.exe and Mel-windows-aarch64.zip.
  • Linux — the mel binary as Mel-linux-x86_64.tar.gz.

The installers are published to the direct-download bucket the website's download buttons point at, in a folder named for the tag. A new build goes to the beta channel first. The stable channel and the download page move to it only when it is promoted, so between a tag and its promotion the download page still serves the previous stable release.

Coming from v0.1.56 to v0.1.62

If you follow the stable channel and run any version from v0.1.56 to v0.1.62, install v0.1.63 by hand once from the download page. Or turn on Settings → Features → Receive beta updates, update, and turn it off again. These versions only trust Mel's old release signing key, so they can't install the first release signed with the new key by themselves. From v0.1.63 on, updates install by themselves again.

Updating by hand

Mel updates itself (see Auto-update below). If you'd rather replace it yourself:

  1. Download the latest build for your OS from the download page (the same links as in installation).
  2. Quit Mel.
  3. Replace the old app/binary with the new one — on macOS drop the new Mel.app over the old one in Applications; on Windows and Linux replace the extracted binary.
  4. Launch the new version.

Your data survives updates untouched: settings (~/.mel/), agent conversations and your Drive library are stored in your home folder (%APPDATA%\mel on Windows), not inside the app.

macOS note

macOS builds carry a stable Apple Developer ID signature, so an update keeps the same signature. Two consequences:

  • No Gatekeeper re-prompt — the new build opens the same way the old one did (signed and notarized).
  • Your Full Disk Access grant persists across the update. You set it once.

Auto-update

Mel checks for a new version when it starts. When one is out, the account menu offers Update and relaunch Mel: it downloads the new build, checks its SHA-256 against the release list, swaps the app in one step, and relaunches. Check for updates in the same menu (on a Mac it is also in the Mel menu in the menu bar) checks again on demand.

  • Updates must be signed by Mel. The release list is signed, and the download is checked against the fingerprint that signed list names. An update that isn't signed is refused, and you keep the version you have.
  • Stable or beta. By default Mel follows the stable channel. Turn on Settings → Features → Receive beta updates to get new versions a few days earlier; turn it off to go back to stable at the next release.
  • If anything goes wrong, the running copy is left as it was and you can download by hand with the steps above.

On a Windows PC with an ARM processor (Snapdragon), the updater installs the native ARM64 build, even when the Mel you're running is the x64 one under emulation. That is how an x64 install on an ARM PC moves onto the native build, in place, keeping your data. An x64 Mel older than this change first updates to a current x64 build, and switches at the update after that. A release without an ARM64 build updates you to the x64 one instead, and an ordinary x64 PC always gets the x64 build.

On v0.1.17 or earlier? Those builds can't detect new releases (their update check points at a source that no longer answers), so the in-app updater stays silent no matter what ships. Download the latest build from the download page once — from then on, updates are one click from inside Mel.

One thing that updates without any download at all: Mel's AI backend. Model routing, the model catalog, and agent behavior improvements ship server-side, so your installed app gets smarter between releases with no action from you. Only changes to the app itself — UI, terminal features, local tooling — need a new build.

Version details

Settings → About shows the version you're running. Release tags follow v0.x.y.

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