Changelog

Mac: signed and notarized by Apple

• Signed and notarized by Apple — Empowia for Mac now opens like any other Mac app, with no security workaround needed.

Ask about anyone, and jump to the source

• Ask about a specific person — questions like “what has this person said lately,” “what’s assigned to them,” or “when are they back” now gather both their own messages and every mention of them (including @-mentions a plain name search would miss).
• Jump to the source message — timestamps in Ask answers, and the source timestamp on a to-do, are now clickable and open the original message right in Browse, so you can verify where something came from in one tap.
• A more flexible layout — the window is freely resizable, and the thread column in Browse can be dragged to any width, which it remembers.
• Sturdier AI setup — your Quick Ask model is validated the moment you save, so a mistyped model name is caught right there instead of failing halfway through a question.

Restore during setup, and smarter syncing

• Restore from a backup during setup — on a new computer, import your exported .zip right in the onboarding flow and restore in one step, instead of installing first and importing from Settings afterward.
• New messages in quiet conversations sync on time — a conversation that had gone silent (say, a DM from a colleague back from leave) used to be held up by adaptive back-off; now it’s caught on the very next backup.
• Active conversations are backed up first — each pass handles your most recently active DMs and channels first, so what matters most lands in your archive sooner.

Schedules apply instantly; a sturdier MCP link

• Backup and AI auto-extraction schedule changes now take effect immediately — no restart needed.
• Fixed the weekly and monthly “Deep scan” schedule (it wasn’t being saved).
• The MCP command now uses a stable launch alias that keeps working across Store updates.

Pick your conversations, filter your exports

• Free-version conversation picker — choose which conversations to back up (up to 20), grouped, searchable, and sorted by recent activity.
• Message export, now filterable — the Excel, CSV, or JSON export moved to its own Settings → Export section, and you can scope it to one conversation, one person, or a recent window (last 7 / 30 / 90 days), not just everything.
• Real names for DMs and group chats, instead of raw IDs.
• Live AI model list pulled from your provider — no more outdated built-in defaults.
• The Unlimited badge now shows who it’s licensed to (your email) — a gentle nudge against sharing.
• Friendlier, translated messages when a saved Slack sign-in or AI key can’t be read on a new computer.
• More reliable launch — fixed the occasional need to open it twice, and a downloaded-portable issue that could stop the window from opening.
• More forgiving unlock-code paste — accepts codes even if your email app rewrote the dashes.

Back up, restore & move machines

• Back up & restore — export a complete backup (messages, files, insights, settings) to a single .zip, and restore it on another computer or after a reinstall. Restores apply safely on restart, with a one-click Restart now and an automatic rollback of your previous data.
• Smoother Slack Desktop auto-login, and clearer guidance when Slack Desktop needs to close briefly so Empowia can read its session.
• Reliability and polish across backup and settings.

Design refresh

• A refreshed Empowia look across every screen — flatter, calmer, more consistent lists and cards.
• Completed the multi-language UI polish for English, Français, 中文, 日本語, and Deutsch — including settings, extractions, and help text.
• Renamed “extractors” to extractions and tidied the iconography throughout.

Free version, licensing & languages

• Free version with every feature, capped at 20 conversations — plus an offline unlock code to remove the cap. Activation is fully offline: no account, no server check.
• Multi-language interface (EN / FR / ZH / JA / DE) with instant switching.
• Export your archive to Excel, CSV, or JSON for sharing or analysis elsewhere.

Make it yours

• Custom extractions — define your own AI extractions: your prompt, your channel scope, your schedule (e.g. “Feature requests”, “Bugs”).
• MCP server — make your backed-up archive available to Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-aware client as read-only tools (search, channels, threads, to-dos, decisions), entirely on your machine.
• Light / dark / auto themes.

AI insights

• Ask — ask questions in plain language and get answers from your archive, with the source channels cited.
• Insights — automatically extract To-dos, Decisions, and Useful links from your conversations.
• Bring your own AI key — Google Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, or OpenRouter — with per-month usage & cost tracking. AI is optional and off by default.

Find anything

• Full-text search across everything you’ve backed up, with #channel and @user scoping.
• Files gallery for every attachment, filterable by type and workspace.
• Scheduled and incremental backups, and a deep rescan that catches edits, reactions, and late thread replies on older messages.

First release

• Back up one or more Slack workspaces to your own computer.
• Browse your archive in a familiar Slack-style reader.
• Portable app — no installer, no admin rights; move the folder, move your data. Slack sign-in stored securely at rest, protected by Windows (DPAPI).