Release Notes

You can sign in with your Bluesky handle, on the app and on the web. Grilled Cheese asks for write access once, at sign-in, and then works with your Bluesky account directly. Your posts, likes, reposts, follows, blocks and deletes go to your own Bluesky account, and Melts are published there too and removed when they melt.

The people you follow, the accounts you block, and your mutes and muted words come across from Bluesky, and stay in step as you change them on either side. Your Grilled Cheese profile is kept separately, so editing it never changes your Bluesky profile. An account hosted by Bluesky counts as a verified contact.

A large photo is scaled on your phone so its longest side is 2000 pixels and saved in a compact format (WebP on iPhone, iPad and Android), so it uploads quickly even on a slow connection. A photo that is already small enough goes up as it is.

Either way, the hidden details a camera writes into the file are removed before anything leaves your phone. The place a photo was taken is kept only if you turn on Keep location data on photos under Privacy in Settings.

Apps built on ATProto, the network Bluesky runs on, can now let you sign in with your Grilled Cheese handle. A short consent screen says which identity the app may use and what it may do before you agree.

On the web, Connected apps in your account settings lists every app you have let in, AI tools included, and Disconnect cuts one off on its next request. The web’s Developer settings are now called Integrations.

Any Grilled Cheese account can now connect an AI tool and grant it write access as well as read. Writing on your behalf still needs Premium, and is checked each time the tool acts, so subscribing later makes the same connection work without reconnecting. See Connecting AI tools.

A follow from someone on another network names who it was, rather than an unknown author. Follow requests and approvals from Mastodon say what they are. The badge on the app icon now matches what is unread each time you open or refresh the app, so a stray "1" no longer sits on the icon for days.

Replies from accounts you have blocked or muted are hidden in every thread. New usernames can use letters, numbers and dashes, from 3 to 30 characters. Dots and underscores are no longer accepted, because a username becomes part of a web address and they break it there. The screen says what is allowed as you type.

Public Melts now reach the ATProto network along with your posts, and are withdrawn there when they melt. A profile’s network badge shows only the networks that person actually reaches, and images in posts from Mastodon servers display again.

A replayed App Store purchase no longer sends a Premium granted or Premium expired notification when nothing about your subscription changed.

A new conversation belongs to your account rather than to one phone, so it is there on every device you sign in to. These ordinary conversations are not end-to-end encrypted.

End-to-end encryption is now Secure Conversations, a beta you turn on under Privacy in Settings. A secure conversation stays on the device that started it and is not backed up, and its messages are removed after 30 days. The same screen chooses which message buttons your profile shows. See Secure Conversations.

All your conversations are in one list, and the secure ones carry a lock. A one-to-one conversation can be deleted permanently from its menu, and an open conversation updates as messages arrive.

The toggle beside the feed switch now chooses between the people you follow and the globe. The globe is your follows with discoveries mixed in. Following shows only the accounts you follow, with nothing added, and when it is empty it offers a way to Explore.

The full-screen video viewer has a scrub bar, with the time played and the total length.

The app opens on the age check again. Browsing without an account is not offered in this release, and moving an account here from inside the app is paused. The command line route in the User Guide still works.

Following a public account on Mastodon reads Following… while it is confirmed, rather than Requested. About now links to the User Guide, and on a Mac or a PC text in posts can be selected and copied. Posts from other networks that are recognised as adult content are labelled and follow your sensitive-content setting. Posts by a deleted account no longer appear on shared links.

Bringing an identity here no longer needs the command line tools. Move an account here, under Moving in in Account settings, walks the whole move: it takes your old handle and an app password, shows you what will transfer and what will not before anything happens, copies your posts and images across while you watch, and finishes when you paste in the confirmation code your old provider emails you. Nothing is final until that code is entered, and cancelling before it unwinds cleanly. The same wizard is offered while you are setting up a new account, which is the moment most people arrive.

If your old handle is a domain you own, you keep it. The command line route is still documented and still works.

There is now a Grilled Cheese app on the Apple Watch. Signing in on the iPhone signs in the watch, and the watch gets its own entry in your list of sessions, which you can revoke on its own without touching your phone.

Restore purchases is on the Premium screen for anyone reinstalling or moving to a new device. A current subscription now says when the period ends and where to cancel it, rather than leaving you to find out from the store. The paywall links the terms and the privacy policy, and the prices shown are the ones the stores actually charge. When a purchase cannot be completed the app says which problem it was instead of reporting a generic failure.

You can see who liked a post, and your own profile has a Likes tab.

iPhones now register for push, so alerts arrive when the app is closed. Each kind of notification reads as itself, so there is no more "Unknown author followed you".

One-time codes are numeric, and the login screen offers a single way to sign up rather than several. After the age gate, the door takes either an email address or a phone number.

You can also browse the app without signing in at all: no account, nothing created, nothing kept.

The bottom bar has been rebuilt and slides out of the way as you scroll. On iPad, everything opens in the column you opened it from, and capture stays portrait.

A Latest and Ranked toggle sits in the search box, and scrolling pages in more results.

A crop you make is part of the upload rather than something applied when the post is displayed, so everyone sees the picture you framed. Videos chosen from the system picker arrive with their length and size known, and photos are measured rather than assumed, so nothing is cropped to a shape it is not.

You can export your data from a phone, not only from a desktop. Language sits under This identity, alongside the other things that belong to a persona.

An identity that cannot be created says why, and when it can be retried. A cold start reads as loading instead of announcing a connection problem, and a single network stumble no longer drops you to an offline screen. Encrypted chat is steadier: the app keeps a small pool of keys topped up rather than replacing it each time, and when something does go wrong it says what.

On a tablet or a desktop the app is now a set of columns you arrange yourself, reached through a single navigation rail you can collapse. Alongside a timeline, a column can be the composer kept open beside your reading, your drafts and scheduled posts, trending hashtags, or a search. Each home column carries its own feed filter, so two of them can show different things at once.

A search can run live: leave it open and posts matching it arrive as they are made. Free sessions run for five minutes and Premium sessions are not capped, and when a session ends the Live control resets so you can start another. Arrivals slide in at the top, and the chrome around the results folds away while a session is running.

Posts is now the first tab and the one search opens on. Searching the conversation is what a search box is usually for; finding an account is the occasional errand.

Recent searches appear as chips under the box. Remove one, or clear the lot. A hashtag opens the same results surface a search does, and can be followed live in the same way. Results lead with recent posts. Trending leads Explore, with who to follow settled below it.

Photos and video are captured on one screen instead of two. A video can run to thirty seconds, or two minutes with Premium.

A description can be edited on a photo you have already posted, without deleting it and posting it again. If you would rather never post without one, require alt text can be turned on for an identity.

The app’s own language can be set per identity, separately from the device’s. You can also choose which content languages you want to see, and the composer’s language list narrows to the ones you picked.

The everything feed fills its own gaps as you scroll, so a fast timeline stops leaving holes behind. Pulling to refresh reconciles against the live timeline rather than a stored copy. Photo posts carry the same byline, linkified caption and tap-to-expand as every other card.

A profile from another network opens immediately with its shape drawn in, instead of a blank screen while it resolves. Followers and following lists work for Bluesky accounts.

Following several accounts at once raises one notification rather than one per account.

You are told when Premium access is granted and when it ends. A reminder about a complimentary subscription says that access ends, rather than saying it will renew.

Post search works now. It searches posts made here and posts from the rest of the network. Results are ranked by how well they match, with posts in your language first. Nearby shows geotagged posts from people close to you.

A wizard moves a Bluesky account to Grilled Cheese in three steps, and it is easier to find from signup. There is also a forgot password flow now.

Direct messages from other networks now show up as plain text conversations. Read receipts are a setting that works both ways: you can see theirs only while they can see yours, and you can turn it off. The chat composer says sent when a message is sent instead of spinning, and the sent state survives a reconnect.

Leaving the composer with work in it asks if you want to save a draft, discard it, or keep writing. Videos can be given a description and captions, and both play back with the video. If a photo already has a description saved in it, the app offers that text so you do not have to retype it. Avatar and banner alt text can be seen and edited. A scheduled post time you confirmed stays confirmed. The composer holds a post to the limits of the networks it will go out to, so it does not get cut off somewhere else. HEIC photos are converted on your device when you pick them, so they upload and display everywhere.

Post images that have a description show an ALT badge. The post action row is labeled for screen readers, and decorative images are skipped. A screen reader reaches the app’s own controls before the endless feed. Accessibility preferences now follow your account instead of the device. Autoplay and looping media follow one motion setting. Captions on a video survive the background upload.

A repost on a profile feed says who reposted it. A pinned post shows a Pinned indicator. Replies that match your hidden words collapse to a single row naming the word, and can be expanded. The heart and the bubble remember what you already did. Images take up exactly the space they will need, so the feed does not shift while they load. Bylines show up right away.

Reactions to the same post arrive as one grouped notification, with the reactors' avatars and "and N others", instead of one notification per person.

The focus viewer loads full resolution when you ask for it, instead of deciding for you on mobile data. Media marked sensitive is covered everywhere it can appear, and covered media is hidden from screen readers.

The age gate asks for an age band instead of a yes or no at 18. If an app store provides an age signal, the app honors it. When the terms change, you are asked to agree again, and signup records the exact terms you were shown. The account lock setting names each network it affects, and the visibility picker says what a lock does and does not do.

The app checks its own connection before calling a request failed, so a dead spot is reported as a connection problem. Responses are compressed, which makes the app lighter on mobile data. German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese translations are caught up with English.

Push notifications arrive on Android. A notification that lands while you are using the app is shown in the app rather than dropped, tapping one opens the post, follow, or conversation it is about, and the icon badge counts what you have not read yet. Choose which kinds you want under Settings > Notifications.

Build a list of accounts and read it as its own timeline. Create and name a list, add and remove members, and add someone to a list straight from their profile. Lists are yours alone; being on one is not something the account is told about.

If you own a domain, you can use it as your handle, so @you.example.com replaces @you.grilledcheese.app. Settings > Handle walks through it and shows the two records you can publish to prove the domain is yours, either of which is enough. Handles now render as the whole hostname everywhere they appear, which is how ATProto handles are written.

The everything feed can now be read full-bleed, with media running edge to edge. Toggle it under Settings > Appearance. Quoted posts are indented so a quote is legible as a quote at that width.

Photos in the feed appear as a rail you can page through in place. Pulling up on a photo opens the post’s comments under it without leaving the picture.

In landscape on a phone, posts lay out in two panes and media is height-capped so a photo cannot push the text off the screen.

Tapping an avatar in a timeline opens a preview of that profile as a sheet, warmed so it appears immediately. Dragging the sheet up morphs it into the full profile rather than replacing it.

Highlight text on a post and share it as an image themed to match the app. The first swatch reverses the card’s text and ground, the palette is brighter, and a marked-up image can be saved to your device without posting it.

Alt text has a button, a reminder, and somewhere to write it. You can declare the language a post is written in, which is what other servers use to filter and translate. The action row scrolls, so no control is unreachable on a small screen.

Bookmark a page from inside the in-app browser and the post that carried the link is what gets bookmarked. The browser opens plain http:// pages instead of refusing them. Who to follow shuffles each time you look, rather than showing the same accounts until they are followed.

Paywalled posts can be hidden with a toggle, and reported as paywalled.

Reads that fail are retried with visible progress before anything is declared broken: the feed, notifications, bookmarks, and profiles. A profile that never loads degrades in place and stays navigable instead of becoming an error screen.

Photos appear as a rail you can page through without opening the post. Tapping one opens a detail viewer that animates from the tile you tapped, and pulling up reveals the post underneath.