Changed
- Focused on your own computer. Desktop now focuses on setting up Open WebUI on your computer and opening it whenever you need it. Get Started installs and opens your local copy. If you use Open WebUI on another server, Open WebUI Tether is the companion app for extending what you can do with it.
- More room for Open WebUI. Removed the desktop connection sidebar and replaced the old toolbar with a slim header showing the current page title. The header follows Open WebUI's light, dark, and OLED themes. Windows keeps its familiar minimize, maximize, and close buttons. The window can now shrink to 360 pixels wide, including a square layout.
- Controls in the bottom bar. Settings now sits at the bottom left, with the app version and page refresh on the right. Click Open WebUI to show or hide its activity log, restart it from the open panel, or use the arrow beside its name to open it in your browser when the panel is closed. Refresh reloads the page without restarting Open WebUI.
- Startup progress you can inspect. The loading screen shows the latest startup message beneath “Loading…”. Click that message to open the full log. Logs remain available if startup fails, and the panel can be resized and its output copied.
- Settings that match Open WebUI. Added search to find the relevant settings section, grouped navigation, a Back button, and stronger text contrast in both themes. Tabs scroll horizontally in narrow windows. Text uses your system font, with smaller icons and tooltips throughout the app.
- New default shortcut. Press Cmd+Shift+O on macOS or Ctrl+Shift+O on Windows and Linux to bring Desktop forward. Existing saved shortcuts stay unchanged.
- Optional local models. The llama.cpp option is now off by default during installation. You can choose to enable it during setup or later in Settings.
Removed
- Remote server connections. Desktop no longer adds, opens, or switches between Open WebUI servers hosted elsewhere, including previously saved connections.
- Desktop chat overlays and shortcuts. Removed the floating Spotlight chat bar, its screenshot capture and clipboard auto-paste, system-wide voice input, and the shortcut for starting a call.
- Built-in Open Terminal. Desktop no longer installs, starts, or manages Open Terminal. Its setup option, settings, and status controls have been removed.
Fixed
- Custom ports and local network sharing. Desktop follows the running server's actual port after a restart and connects through loopback when LAN sharing is enabled. Port selection now checks whether the server can bind, including on Windows (#250, #207).
- Open WebUI stuck on its splash screen. Fixed loading inside Desktop and kept Open WebUI's regular interface without the extra server selector.
- Starting, stopping, and restarting. Repeated starts no longer launch duplicate copies of Open WebUI or llama.cpp. Stopping during startup cancels the pending start, and an older copy exiting no longer marks a newer copy as stopped. Quitting Desktop waits for both to shut down.
- Incorrect running status. A failed start or unexpected exit now updates the controls and shows the failure instead of continuing to report that everything is running.
- Logs during long sessions. Limited the amount of old output kept in memory and stopped closed log views from leaving unused connections behind. Opening another log view no longer disconnects the first one.
- Local model startup preference. Fixed the llama.cpp “Start on Launch” switch so changing it saves your choice.
- Desktop settings protected from page requests. Pages shown inside the app can no longer request changes to desktop settings, stop local services, or reset the app.
- Linux updates. Fixed release packaging so the update download list includes ARM64 builds alongside Intel and AMD builds.