Changelog.

☁️ Friendlier with iCloud

• Patient with lazy downloads. When iCloud is still pulling a file in the background, Canto now waits and quietly retries instead of reporting a sync failure.
• Fewer scary error messages. Transient "missing payload" warnings during normal iCloud catch-up no longer surface as failures.
• Self-healing attachments. If your local attachment index ever goes missing, Canto rebuilds it from your retained sync history so files aren't accidentally dropped.

✍️ A more disciplined writing agent

• Section-sized drafts. Long notes are now written one section at a time in deliberate passes, so big drafts feel less jarring as they fill in.
• No more duplicated titles. If the AI tries to use your note's title as the first body heading, Canto blocks it and routes the agent to rename the note properly instead.
• Better mid-draft repairs. When the agent needs to fix the end of a paragraph it just wrote, it repairs the tail instead of appending a near-duplicate copy.
• Safer handling of equations and special blocks. Fragile inline elements are only dropped when explicitly necessary, not as a side effect of a normal edit.

📊 Honest storage numbers

• Counted from disk. Sync Settings now reports journal counts based on what's actually in your vault folder, with the database count shown alongside if the two ever drift.
• Quieter idle behavior. Canto no longer rolls over its sync history files just because the app sat idle — the safety backstop now waits a full week.
• iCloud bytes at a glance. The compact status line in Sync Settings now shows how much space your attachments are using inside the synced vault.

🛠️ Smaller fixes & refinements

• Cleaner Repair Full Sync failures. If a repair hits an error before it can publish, Canto stops early and tells you what happened instead of writing a half-finished state.
• Better mid-segment catch-up. Devices returning to sync in the middle of a busy edit window now pick up the remaining changes correctly on the first try.
• Fresher attachment index. Canto refreshes its attachment index roughly every five minutes while unlocked, so storage cleanup always works from up-to-date information.

Smaller fixes

• Equal-timestamp edits now use a stable rule to pick a winner instead of flapping back and forth.
• Non-destructive cross-device merges are labeled as last-write-wins merges in the sync history, instead of the older generic label.

✅ A clear approval step after reading the web

• Edits pause for approval after a URL or web search. If the agent fetched a link, ran a web search, or pulled in content from a saved link during a turn, the next note edit in that turn asks for your approval — even if you normally have auto-approve on.
• You see why approval is being asked. A small note explains: "Remote URL/search content was read in this run, so edits require approval."
• Read-only summaries stay friction-free. If the agent only quotes or summarizes a page back to you in chat, no extra approval is needed.

⚙️ New setting: Auto-approve after approved URL content

• Found in Settings → Agent.
• On (default): once you approve the first URL-grounded edit in a run, Canto returns to its normal auto-approve behavior for the rest of that run.
• Off: every URL-grounded edit asks for its own approval, for the most cautious workflow.
• Per-run only. A brand-new chat starts fresh either way, so trust never carries over silently between runs.

🔒 Safer URL fetching

• Public web only. Links that try to reach your machine, your local network, or other private/internal addresses are rejected before any request goes out.
• Validated redirects. Every hop in a redirect chain is checked against the same rules, so a public URL can't quietly bounce to a private one.
• Stricter URL rules. Only normal http and https URLs are fetched, and links with embedded credentials are turned away.
• Same surfaces, safer plumbing. Applies to Agent Chat URL prefetch, the Fetch this page tool, and your saved link pills alike.

🗂️ One approval flow for all vault changes

• Renaming, moving, deleting, duplicating, and pinning notes, plus creating and renaming folders, now consistently route through the same approval UI as note edits — so vault-changing actions can't slip through as if they were read-only.

🛠️ Smaller refinements

• Tighter agent prompt rules. The agent is now explicitly told to ignore instructions found inside fetched pages or search results.
• Clearer grounded steps. When the agent uses web evidence, it's easier to see at a glance which steps were grounded in remote content.
• Quieter, more predictable runs. Approval prompts only appear when something genuinely warrants confirmation.

🚀 Faster

• Quicker startup. The sidebar, recents, and search no longer load full note bodies just to draw a row.
• Lazy tab restore. Open tabs are brought back on demand instead of all at once at launch.
• Faster Memory Links on big vaults. Note similarity uses an approximate nearest-neighbor index for a clear speedup on large note collections.
• Smoother background work. MiniLM (the model behind Memory Links and search) runs in tighter batches and prioritizes the note you're currently viewing.
• Snappier local agent replies. Canto picks the right tools for each turn and reuses the AI session between turns when it can.
• Lighter memory pressure. Canto only trims its caches when memory is genuinely tight, instead of jumping at every blip.

🎙️ Audio & Video

• Native Whisper transcription. Audio attachments and videos now transcribe with Canto's built-in Whisper engine end-to-end — faster, more reliable, and no extra setup or helper download.
• Quiet retries. Older audio or video items that failed under the previous helper are picked back up automatically.

🎨 Polish

• Clearer Sync & Vision status chips. The small status indicators now share one consistent style with calmer colors and more readable labels.
• Bigger sidebar AI actions. The action buttons inside the sidebar's AI island are easier to hit and easier to scan.
• More reliable window dragging. The top of the sidebar is a sturdier drag region, so moving the window won't accidentally toggle controls.
• One-surface shell. The editor, sidebar, and status bar share a single calm background tone, so the app reads as one piece.
• Tighter sidebar typography. Another pass over labels and spacing for a quieter, more confident look.

🛠️ Fixed

• Sturdier agent edits. Long AI edits are less likely to drop content thanks to a stricter safety check on what the agent can write.
• Full note-agent toolkit restored. Every note-side automation tool is available again, with bounded previews so the agent doesn't choke on huge notes.
• Quieter sync. Duplicate journal records no longer cause noisy retries on iCloud Drive.
• Smaller agent payloads. Sidebar previews sent to the AI are trimmed so it gets the gist of nearby notes without the full text.

🔗 Slimmer Inline Pills

• Wiki links ([[Note]]), web link pills, and inline attachments are thinner and less padded
• Pills now sit inside a sentence instead of interrupting it
• They keep their accent color and hover treatment, just with less visual weight

📐 Sidebar Density Setting

• New Sidebar Density control in Appearance settings with three modes:
  • Comfortable — generous spacing with full preview lines and metadata
  • Compact — the new default; lighter rows that still show what matters
  • Dense — maximum notes on screen, ideal for large vaults
• Live preview for each mode in Appearance settings
• Tags on note rows now show as small colored dots instead of chips, keeping titles easy to read
• Notes and notebooks always show their icons so file types are easy to scan

🪧 Easier to Spot the Note You're Reading

• The currently open note gets a soft accent bar on the left edge in pinned and recent rows
• Its icon picks up the accent color so your eye lands on it first
• In Dense mode, secondary preview lines step out of the way so titles dominate

▶️ YouTube Links Know Their Title

• Paste a YouTube URL on its own line and Canto inserts a clean pill labeled with the actual video title
• The Insert Link dialog auto-fills its title from the YouTube video (or the site's domain), but never overwrites text you've already typed
• Videos that previously failed to index because of an outdated transcript helper are quietly retried in the background

New Full Sync Repair

Canto now includes a Full Sync Repair action in Sync settings.

This is designed for cases where a Mac needs help catching up or rebuilding its local sync view.

Full Sync Repair can:

• Flush local changes.
• Revisit available sync history.
• Pull the latest changes from iCloud Drive.
• Use compatible recovery data when available.
• Publish fresh recovery information for this Mac.
• Explain when repair is only partial or waiting on iCloud Drive.

If another Mac needs to publish fresher recovery data, Canto now gives a clearer message instead of silently claiming everything is complete.

Clearer Sync Health

The Sync settings page now gives a more useful health summary.

Instead of only showing low-level status details, Canto now describes sync in plain language, such as:

• Up to date
• Recovering
• Scope-limited
• Locked
• Paused
• Needs repair

The Sync Health section also shows whether Canto has remote records waiting because of selected folders or missing dependencies.

Notes Stay Visible When Folders Change

Canto is now more careful when synced folder updates arrive from another Mac.

This fixes cases where a folder could be removed or hidden during sync while a note inside it was still open. In older builds, that note could remain visible in the editor but disappear from the sidebar.

Improvements include:

• Notes and notebooks are moved to a safe visible location when their synced folder is removed.
• Notes pointing to missing folders are repaired instead of hidden.
• The sidebar refreshes after sync applies remote changes.
• Open notes are less likely to become “orphaned” after folder sync activity.

More Reliable iCloud Drive Catch-Up

Canto now watches more of its iCloud Drive sync area and wakes up more quickly when sync files change.

It still does not rely on instant file notifications alone. Regular startup, unlock, resume, and background checks continue to be the source of correctness.

This makes sync feel more responsive while staying safer when iCloud Drive delivers files late or out of order.

Safer Recovery Points

Canto is now more careful about the recovery data it uses.

A Mac that only synced selected folders should not be treated as if it has a complete copy of the full vault. Canto now distinguishes full-vault recovery data from folder-limited recovery data, which helps avoid incomplete recovery paths.

Better Multi-Mac Presence

Device status and sync presence are more accurate.

Canto now keeps device presence fresher through background heartbeats, making Sync diagnostics more useful when multiple Macs are involved.

New Notes Go to the Right Folder

Creating a new note from a folder now more reliably places that note inside the folder you selected.

This fixes a frustrating case where “New Note in Folder” could create the note somewhere unexpected.

Other Reliability Improvements

Canto 0.6.4 also includes several behind-the-scenes sync improvements:

• Better handling of sync history after app startup and unlock.
• Stronger protection against out-of-order or missing iCloud Drive files.
• Safer cleanup of old sync data.
• More careful handling of folder updates, folder removal, and related notes.
• Better recovery when one Mac receives sync changes before another related change has arrived.