A big release packed with new features, faster command mode, more reliable streaming, and a long list of fixes.

New

• Search Across Transcripts — Find anything you've ever dictated. Full-text search across every past transcription, with quick jump-to-result.

• Audio Playback & Scrub Controls — Play back transcription audio with proper scrubbing controls — pause, seek, and re-listen to any segment.

• Ask Questions Live During Meetings (Pro) — Ask Vowen anything mid-meeting and get answers in real time, without ever leaving the call.

• Follow-Up Questions in Command Mode — Refine a command-mode response with follow-up questions instead of starting over.

• Speaker Diarization with Groq (Pro · macOS) — Groq Whisper transcriptions now support Pyannote-powered speaker diarization.

• Gemini Speech Models — Google's Gemini speech models are now available as a cloud transcription option.

• OpenAI Real-Time Streaming — OpenAI is now supported as a real-time streaming transcription provider.

• Group Notes by Tags — Organize meeting notes by tag with a dedicated filter bar and default filtering options.

• Webhook Delivery Logs (Pro) — Track every webhook fire — see status, response, and payload for each delivery from settings.

• Merge Speaker Labels (Pro) — Collapse multiple speaker labels into one across a transcript with a single action.

• Add Context Mid-Meeting — Type quick context notes directly into the meeting-notes recording indicator while recording.

• Cancel Follow-Ups Midway — Stop a running follow-up question mid-flight instead of waiting for it to finish.

• Hide the Recording Indicator — A new setting lets you suppress the on-screen recording indicator entirely when you don't want it visible.

• App-Native Timer — The in-app timer is now a true native window with smoother visuals and better behavior across spaces.

Improved

• More Reliable Parakeet Streaming with VAD — Voice activity detection now drives Parakeet streaming for cleaner segments and more reliable real-time transcription.

• Auto-Switch Models on Failure — Command mode and custom utilities now seamlessly fall back to another model when one fails or hits a rate limit.

• Much Lower Command-Mode Token Usage — Default command-mode calls now use under 1.5k tokens (down from 8k) — faster, cheaper, and less rate-limit pressure.

• Meeting Notes Settings, Reorganized — Meeting note settings now live as a dedicated tab inside the main Settings modal, with a cleaner layout.

• Pausing Notes Pauses Everything — Pausing a meeting note now pauses the recording indicator and timer too, so the UI stays in sync with the recording.

• Halo on the Recording Indicator — A subtle halo around the recording indicator makes it easier to see at a glance when Vowen is live.

• Empty State on Summaries — A friendlier empty state appears when there's nothing to summarize, instead of a blank panel.

• Finer Transcript Segment Controls — More precise controls for merging and splitting individual segments inside a transcript.

• Faster Mic Unmute After Recording — Your mic unmutes the instant recording stops, instead of waiting for transcription processing to finish.

• Auto-Translate for Parakeet (Pro) — Auto-translate-to-English now works with on-device Parakeet transcriptions.

• Hide Live Ask When Real-Time Is Off — The live-ask UI now stays out of sight unless real-time transcription is actually enabled.

• Smarter Command-Mode Banner — Better formatting in the command-mode banner, plus improved link-opening behavior.

• Obsidian Sync Improvements (Pro) — Notes synced to Obsidian now go into the right vault folder and include transcript and template name as parameters.

• Updated DeepSeek Models — Refreshed the available DeepSeek model lineup with the latest releases.

• Parakeet Chunking on Windows (Windows) — Parakeet now chunks longer audio on Windows for more reliable transcription of long recordings.

• SwiftShader Fallback on Windows (Windows) — Vowen now falls back to SwiftShader when GPU rendering isn't available on Windows, instead of failing to launch.

• Cleaner Notes Settings Modal — The notes settings modal has been simplified and decluttered.

Fixed

• Esc & Tab Crash on Global Shortcuts — Fixed a SIGTRAP crash that could occur when Esc or Tab were involved in globally registered shortcuts.

• Groq Transcription Timestamps — Fixed an issue with timestamps in Groq transcriptions.

• Parakeet Streaming Overlap — Fixed an overlapping live-streaming bug with Parakeet that could duplicate or fragment segments.

• Live Transcription Time Segments — Fixed timing of live transcription segments and the auto-scroll behavior that follows them.

• Slack Webhook POST Formatting — Fixed broken Slack webhook payloads when delivered via POST.

• External Speaker Source Muting — Fixed an issue where external speaker sources weren't being muted reliably before recording.

• Banner Cut-Off on Resize — Added a ResizeObserver so the recording / command-mode banner no longer gets clipped when its container resizes.

• Follow-Up Banner on Empty Speech — The follow-up banner no longer dismisses itself when a follow-up turns out to be an empty speech segment.

• Card Colors in Dark Mode — Card backgrounds are now consistent across dark mode throughout the app.

• Google Workflow Prefix — Fixed an incorrect prefix used when firing Google Workflow integrations.

• Retry Success for Custom Utilities — Command mode now shows success correctly when a file-based custom utility succeeds on retry.

• Self-Triggered Hotkeys (macOS) — The app's own simulated Cmd+C / Cmd+V key events no longer get mistaken for real user releases and cancel an active recording.

• Meeting Detection Cleanup on Quit (macOS) — Meeting detection now stops cleanly when Vowen quits, instead of lingering in the background.