How big was the update? Taverns just shipped 17 releases in 16 days

How big was the update?

Big enough that we had to measure it. Since the Linux launch on October 5, 2026, the Taverns desktop app went from version 1.0.20 to 1.0.37, and tav.gg and the phone apps kept pace the whole way, with more than 80 new features and fixes across five rounds. A lot of it came straight from your bug reports and ideas in the official Taverns tavern.

• 17 desktop releases
• 16 days
• 80+ new features and fixes
• 6 platforms, one account

What’s new in chat?

• 📝Big one

  Message edit history

  Click or tap (edited) to see every earlier version of a message, in halls, threads, forum posts, DMs and group chats.

  Every app

• 👀Big one

  See who reacted

  Hover a reaction to see who left it, or open the full list with View reactions in the message menu.

  Every app

• 🔎Big one

  Search the whole tavern

  Search every hall, thread, forum post and voice chat in a tavern at once, emoji included. Yes, you can search for 💀. On tav.gg, Ctrl+F or Cmd+F opens it.

  Every app

• 🔠Big one

  Headings, strikethrough and masked links

  Start a line with # for a big heading, strike a thought out, or hide a link behind your own words. Taverns shows where a link really goes before you leave.

  Every app

• 🏷️

  Change your nickname in a click

  Right-click any name or avatar for a quick menu with Profile, Mention and Change nickname, and pick your own name for each tavern.

  Every app

• 💀

  Emoji suggestions

  Type :skull and 💀 pops up next to your tavern’s custom emoji, in DMs too.

  Web, Windows, Linux and phones

• 🧹

  Close a DM

  Tidy a chat out of your DM list until the next message arrives.

  Every app

• 💬

  Smarter DM previews

  Your DM list says Sent a GIF, Sent a sticker or Missed call at a glance.

  Every app

• Your messages, everywhere at once: Send from your phone and it pops up on your open desktop app and tav.gg right away.
• Nicknames everywhere: Tavern nicknames show in every name spot and in reply quotes, and change live.
• New members show up instantly: Someone who just joined appears in the member list with their real name.
• Your tavern’s stickers first: The sticker picker opens on the stickers of the tavern you are in.
• Slow mode countdown: Slow mode tells you how many seconds are left before you can post again.
• Character counter: A little "left" counter shows up on your phone as a long message gets close to 2,000 characters.
• Reply puts you in the box: Press Reply on tav.gg and your cursor is ready to type.
• Group members on a phone browser: Tap a group chat’s name on phone-size tav.gg to see who is in it.

What’s new for your profile and accounts?

• 🔀Big one

  Account switcher

  Stay signed in to up to five accounts and hop between them in two taps from your profile card, Settings or the site menu. On a phone, hold the Me tab.

  Every app

• ✨Big one

  Profile glow-up

  Pick a GIF for your avatar or banner, frame your banner with crop, zoom, blur and dim, and change it all from Edit appearance on your own card.

  Every app

• 🖌️Big one

  Your style, everywhere

  Avatar decorations, all the name effects and hover effects, gradients, fonts and status bubbles now look the same and can be set on the web, desktop and phone. Very dark name colours get a soft glow so they stay readable.

  Every app

• 🔥

  Flame decoration

  A ring of fire for your avatar. Very subtle. Not subtle at all.

  Every app

• 📓

  Journal on your card

  Your profile card has a Journal tab, every entry has its own link, and you get a notification when someone replies.

  Every app

• 🎞️

  Animated avatars in chat

  Uploaded animated avatars play when you hover them, just like GIF avatars.

  Web, Windows and Linux

• Crop it first: The crop editor opens for your first avatar and banner, in Edit profile, and for a new tavern’s icon and banner.
• Bigger uploads for your look: Avatars, banners, themes and tavern art go up to 50 MB with a progress bar, and animations stay animated.
• Fancy fonts, right-sized: Custom name fonts sit neatly next to everyone else’s names.
• Know when you can rename: The username screen tells you up front when your next change is allowed.
• Your friend count: Your own profile shows how many friends you have.
• 18+ profiles: Mark your own profile 18+ in Mature Content settings, and adults who allow mature content see a heads-up card first.
• Who invited you? New members can say who brought them in, and that friend gets a notification when they join.

What’s new in voice, video and streaming?

• 🔒Big one

  End-to-end encrypted calls

  Voice, video and screen share in voice halls, DM calls and group calls are end-to-end encrypted. The keys are made on your devices, so only the people in the call can hear and see it.¹ Tap the lock in the call header to compare a privacy code.

  Every app

• 🫧Big one

  Calls shrink into a bubble

  Minimize a call into a floating bubble with mute and hang up, keep chatting, and tap it to hop back. Video and screen shares go picture-in-picture when you leave the app.

  iPhone and Android

• 📺Big one

  A floating Stage player

  Drag the Stage video down to float it while you browse. It snaps to the corners, and a double-tap makes it full width.

  iPhone and Android

• ▶️Big one

  YouTube and Shorts in chat

  YouTube links play right in the phone chat, Shorts get a tall 9:16 player in every app, and YouTube live links get a proper card.

  Every app

• 🎥Big one

  Taverns for OBS

  A Taverns dock inside OBS Studio: sign in, pick a voice hall or a Stage, and go live to your tavern. See how it works and get Taverns for OBS, free for OBS Studio 30 or newer.

  Windows

• 📞Big one

  Calls, glowed up

  A new sticker-style call screen, a real ringtone while Taverns is open, Answer and Decline right on the notification, and a heads-up for the whole group when a group call starts.

  iPhone and Android

• 🔤

  Subtitles in chat videos

  Videos with built-in subtitles get a CC button and a language picker, and Subtitle style sets the size, colour, background and font. Press C to toggle.

  Every app

• 🙈

  Sensitive streams stay covered

  18+ and sensitive screen shares show a pixel cover and stay silent until you press Watch.

  Every app

• ⛶

  Full-screen video

  A full-screen button on every video on the web and desktop (or double-click, or press F), and phone videos turn sideways in full screen.

  Every app

• Call at the same time? You are connected: If you both press call at once, Taverns just puts you through.
• Turn friends up or down: Set each person’s volume on its own in group calls on your phone.
• Encryption details: It switches on while everyone in the call is on an up-to-date app, and a voice hall is not encrypted while it streams to or from a service that does not support end-to-end encryption.

What’s new for photos, videos and files?

• 📤Big one

  Share into Taverns from any app

  Pick Taverns in your phone’s share sheet and send to your Mind Vault, a DM, a group or a hall, up to five places at once. Installed tav.gg shows up in the share menu too.

  iPhone, Android and installed tav.gg

• 📂Big one

  Attach files from any app

  Browse other apps opens your favourite file manager, Drive or gallery for any kind of file, and can remember the one you like.

  Android

• 🖼️Big one

  Photo collages

  Several photos in one message form a neat grid with a +N on the last tile, and you can swipe through them all.

  Every app

• 📎

  Any file, 12 at a time

  Every file type goes up now, up to 12 per message, with a heads-up before anyone opens a risky one.

  Every app

• 📋

  Paste pictures anywhere

  Paste a copied picture straight into chat on your phone, into a new forum post, or with a right-click on desktop.

  Every app

• ↪️

  Copy, forward, download

  Copy a picture, forward it or save it right from the image viewer and the message menu.

  Every app

• 🌐

  Sharper 360 photos and videos

  Full quality, drag to look around right in the chat, and phones follow your gyroscope.

  Every app

• Save where you want: The phone image viewer has a Save button, and Android saves into the folder you pick and remembers it.
• Small pictures stay small: Tiny images and stickers show at their real size.
• Pictures in call chats: Tap a picture posted in a call or voice chat to open it in the full viewer.
• Sharper poll pictures: Poll option images load faster and look crisper on tav.gg.

What’s new in notifications?

• 🎯Big one

  Pings come to the device you are using

  With the desktop app and tav.gg both open, only the one you are using pops a notification.

  Every app

• ✅Big one

  Read once, read everywhere

  Read a hall on one device and its badge clears on your others right away. Opening a chat or a notification marks it read, and phone notifications clear themselves when you read the chat.

  Every app

• 🗂️

  Notifications stack by chat

  Phone notifications group by conversation, so one busy chat stays one tidy stack.

  iPhone and Android

• 🔕

  Hide muted halls

  One switch per tavern tucks away the halls you muted, except the ones that ping you.

  Every app

• Collapsed categories: Only the halls that ping you show, with a mention count on the header.
• Forums: A dot shows when something new is waiting inside a post, and reaction notifications open the right post.
• Journal replies and Help tickets: Replies to your journal entries and updates on your Help and feedback requests land in your notifications.

What’s new for people who run a tavern?

• 🌌Big one

  Animated and video backgrounds

  Use a GIF, an animated WebP or a short clip (up to 50 MB and 60 seconds) as your tavern’s chat background or banner. Clips rest when people switch apps, turn on reduced motion or run low on battery.

  Every app

• 🧼Big one

  Word Filter

  Pick Taverns’ list, your own words, both, or off, for each tavern in Management > Word Filter.

  Every app

• 📸Big one

  Screenshot shield on desktop

  In halls with Save media turned off, the Windows and Mac apps keep the window out of screenshots and screen recordings, and owners and admins see a small notice in those halls.

  Windows and Mac

• 🔗

  Invite links that look like you

  A tav.gg invite shows your tavern’s name, icon and description on Discord, X, iMessage, Slack, WhatsApp and Telegram.

  Everywhere you share

• 🛡️

  Staff-only forum posts

  Forum halls have a Create posts permission, so a forum can be just for announcements.

  Every app

• ⚙️

  Settings search

  Search User Settings and Tavern Settings in every app. Ctrl+F or Cmd+F jumps straight to it.

  Every app

• Post as the tavern, everywhere: Staff can post as the tavern in Stage hall chat and when starting forum posts too.
• Unmute one hall: Mute a whole category and keep the one hall you care about, Discord style.
• Tidier organising: Deleting a category asks where its halls go, dragging halls, categories and roles scrolls the list, roles drag into order on tav.gg, and the featured-hall emoji uses the real emoji picker.
• Manage halls from your phone: Long-press a category to add a hall, rename it, collapse everything or mute it, and hold a hall to edit it, change its permissions or delete it.
• Type the name to delete: Deleting a tavern asks you to type its name, so there are no one-tap oopsies.

What’s new in Explore?

• @Big one

  Find a tavern by its @handle

  Search @handle in Explore, and every tavern card shows its handle.

  Every app

• 🎬Big one

  Editor’s picks, poster style

  Editor’s picks are big poster cards with each tavern’s art filling the card.

  Web and desktop

• 🏠

  Back where you left off

  Opening Taverns takes you back to your last tavern and hall, or to Explore, and Back from a tavern preview returns you to wherever you opened it.

  Every app

Is Taverns on the Mac App Store?

Yes, it is now! We just launched Taverns on the Mac App Store, so getting it on your Mac is one click, like any other Mac app, and it updates through the App Store with the rest of your apps.³ Prefer a direct download? That is still on the Mac page. Both are free for macOS 13 and later.⁴

New for Mac

Just launched on the Mac App Store

Free for macOS 13 and later, on Apple silicon and Intel. Rather have the direct download? It is still on the Mac page.

Download for Mac

Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPad, Mac, macOS and App Store are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Mac App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

And the Mac is just one stop. Taverns is free on every device: in any browser at tav.gg and in the apps for Windows, Mac, Linux and Steam Deck, iPhone and iPad, and Android, all on one account, so your taverns, DMs and calls follow you from your desk to your couch to your pocket.⁵⁶⁷⁸

What’s new in the apps?

• 🐧Big one

  Our own Flatpak

  Taverns has its own signed Flatpak that keeps itself up to date, and on a Steam Deck the download opens right in Discover.⁶⁹

  Linux and Steam Deck

• 🆘Big one

  Help and feedback, built in

  Report a problem, share an idea or get account help without leaving the app: the ? on the Me screen on a phone, or the account menu on the web and desktop.

  Every app

• 📱

  Scan to sign in

  Sign in on a computer by scanning its QR code, right from the top of Settings on your phone.

  iPhone and Android

• 🎨

  Readable themes

  Tavern themes always stay readable on desktop, and menus and dialogs match the dark app.

  Windows, Mac and Linux

• ⌨️

  Phone polish

  Long forms keep what you type above the keyboard, the rules screen fits every phone, and Android runs smoother on phones with less memory.

  iPhone and Android

What else got better?

• Reporting: Report a whole tavern, an emoji, a sticker or an event, say which part you mean, and get a note when it has been looked at.
• Halls open at the newest message: Even while pictures are still loading.
• Hall search: Results jump straight to the message, and right-click menus open right at your cursor on tav.gg.
• Forum sort sticks: Pick a sort order in a forum and it stays put after you open a post.
• Desktop: Noise cancellation stays on when you change your mic volume, pressing call during a live call rejoins it, and lists keep your place when you resize the window.
• Profile cards: They stay inside the window as they grow, and tapping a friend request opens that person’s profile.