Patch notes for October 24, 2026

This edition includes everything we released from October 17 to October 24, 2026, and most of it is in a big release that comes out today with this post.

If you use Fluxer from Flathub on Linux, some of these changes will come out there a bit later. To get all of them today, install our own Flatpak from pkgs.fluxer.com.

Self-hosting Fluxer is easier and more lightweight than before. The new rexctl tool sets up an instance and keeps it running, and Fluxer uses less CPU and memory while it stays reliable under heavy load, even on modest hardware.

Self-hosting and the Operator Pass

How to run your own Fluxer instance, how the desktop and mobile apps connect to it, and what the Operator Pass is.

Fluxer blogHampus Kraft

Fluxer.app

You get these changes on web, desktop, iOS and Android without updating anything. Self-hosted instances get most of them when they upgrade.

New

• You can create an account on Fluxer.app from the home page of the website with only a display name. You can also join a community from an invite the same way. Later, you claim the account by adding an email address and a password or a passkey, and then you can sign in on your other devices.
• Accounts without a date of birth, such as ones created with only a display name, are asked for it once before they use the app. The app tells you that your date of birth isn't shown to anyone and that it can't be changed later.

Improved

• Message search only finds messages that have every word you search for.
• Every email from Fluxer has a new plain design with the Fluxer logo. The emails are also shorter than before, and their links are in the text itself.
• When you reply to an email from Fluxer, your reply goes to the right inbox, and the support, privacy and appeals addresses use fluxer.com.
• Names in emails show exactly as they're written.
• Emails in Russian address you formally.
• We removed the UK credit card age check. Accounts that passed it keep their record that they're 18 or older, and we also deleted the cards that were saved only for the age check from Stripe, which is our payment provider.
• Cleanup of abandoned accounts never removes an account that paid for something, and Visionary and Operator Pass accounts are never deleted for inactivity.
• Signing up through an invite opens the community you were invited to once your account is ready, including after you enter your date of birth.
• When you verify a domain connection with the file method, Fluxer follows redirects between your domain and the www. address of your domain.
• AVIF uploads keep their quality, and lossy WebP uploads keep their size.
• We delete the copies of reported messages that we keep with each report no later than a year after the report was filed, even if the report is still open.

Fixed

• Fixed incoming calls in direct messages and group chats not ringing your phone when the Fluxer app was closed or running in the background.
• Fixed people who have permission to pin messages but can't read message history being unable to pin messages. Reported by Fullest in #4173.
• Fixed a card or Google Play subscription renewing while you had a gift queued that went more than two years past your paid period. Your subscription ends at the end of the period you paid for, and then the gift time starts.
• Fixed Plutonium gift receipts saying "Monthly".
• Fixed rotated wide color (Display P3) photos getting wrong colors on upload.
• Fixed a community's online member count leaving out members who were already online when a channel you share with them was created.
• Fixed a community's online count treating categories as shared channels.
• Fixed someone who was moved to another voice channel not showing up there for other people and still showing up in the channel they left.
• Fixed your sensitive content settings not blurring sensitive media in direct messages and in communities that allow it outside age-restricted channels.

Web and desktop app

The desktop and web apps are the same app, and everything here is in both.

New

Accounts and sign-in

• The account switcher opens full screen with a tile for each saved account showing its avatar, instance and mention count. You can drag tiles to reorder them, search when you have many accounts, move between them with the arrow keys and open an account's menu from the keyboard or by right-clicking. Picking an account opens the page you were last on there. Suggested by probablyjassin in #4222.
• When you need to confirm your identity before a sensitive change, you can pick "Email me a code" and then enter the code that we send to your email.
• After you claim an account or finish a purchase, the app offers to add a passkey, and then you can sign in with your fingerprint, face or screen lock next time.

Messages and threads

• Turn on "Double-click a message to edit or reply" in "Advanced" settings to edit your messages and reply to others by double-clicking. It's off by default and does nothing where you can't send messages. Suggested by cinnamongold in #1011.
• You can paste a fluxer:// link, such as one to an invite, a profile or a channel, into Quick Switcher, and Quick Switcher takes you directly to it.
• When you hold down the Shift key and click on a thread or a forum post, the thread or post opens in full view. Suggested by Jiralite in #4269.
• An experimental setting in "Advanced" completely hides messages from people you've blocked, with no "blocked messages" row in their place.

Settings and appearance

• A "Themes" tab in settings replaces Theme Studio. You can pick a base theme there and change colors and fonts one at a time with a search field.
• In the "Themes" tab, you can turn saved themes on and change their order, upload assets, share a theme and export or import your whole theme library.
• Quick CSS has its own editor window that shows hints when your CSS has errors, and the changes you make show up in the app while you're still typing.
• Arabic and Hebrew use a right-to-left layout across the app, with mirrored arrows and icons, and names keep their own direction inside translated text.
• On Fluxer.app, the settings sidebar has "What's new", which opens the latest patch notes, and "Submit feedback", which opens Fluxer Feedback. On self-hosted instances, the settings sidebar doesn't show these two items.
• On Fluxer.app, "Donate" in the settings sidebar opens the donate page.

Improved

Accounts and sign-in

• "Switch accounts" in the account menu lists your accounts by display name, and every account shows its instance as a plain host name without "http://". Each account also uses the default avatar from its own instance.
• When the instance of your current account is down when the app starts, the error screen lists your other accounts and you can use one of them.
• The page for authorizing an app or bot lets you pick one of your saved accounts or sign in to another one, and you can sign out of an expired account there.
• The sign-in card shows the name and logo of the instance, and the sign-in pages always use the dark theme. Suggested by vesaber in #1228.
• You can sign out of saved accounts from the sign-in page, and when switching accounts there fails, the error shows up under that account.
• Expired accounts on the sign-in page say that you need to sign in again.
• When passkey sign-in doesn't work, the app tells you why it failed, and this also includes the times when the passkey prompt wasn't allowed.
• The sign-in and sign-up forms show how long to wait after too many tries.
• Sign-up shows the terms as a notice with links, where it used to have a checkbox. When our policies change, a banner asks you to review them, and you agree to the updated terms there. The updated privacy policy is linked for you to read.
• When the app asks you to claim your account or to confirm your email, the prompt tells you what's missing and what you need to do about it.
• The email reminder bar only shows when your email needs confirming.
• You can snooze the unclaimed account banner.
• If you report something before confirming your email, you can enter the confirmation code in the report flow without having to leave it.
• Prompts that ask you to confirm your email, such as the bar at the top of the app, "Add friend" and creating a community, send the email from their own button, where they used to open settings. The button tells you that it resends the same email we sent when you signed up. Reported by KnightMB in #4248.
• The backup codes dialog tells you that the codes still work if you lose your authenticator app, and that they also work if you lose your passkey.

Messages and communities

• "Delete my messages" works in forum channels, media channels and threads. When you use it in a channel, it also deletes your messages in that channel's threads, including the archived ones. Reported by Fullest in #4169.
• When you write a new forum or media post, Enter starts a new line and Ctrl+Enter (⌘Enter on macOS) posts it. Reported by Fullest in #3890.
• Discovery is called Explore in the app, and its page is at /channels/@explore.
• When there's nothing in the sticker picker, it shows a message in the picker that says "Stickers added to your communities show up here."
• Data deletion and export say if you'll get a direct message, an email or neither when they finish, and export shows the download in the app if no email comes.
• When your connection drops, the app tries to reconnect at least every 10 seconds, and if it can't resume your session, it starts a new one on that connection.

Plutonium

• Profiles show badges as images, with new art for Plutonium, staff and other badges. The Plutonium badge says "Lifetime Plutonium" on accounts that have it.
• The Plutonium icon is an atom in place of the crown, and the Plutonium page and subscription management in settings have a new design that matches the website. On Fluxer.app, the Plutonium page shows an animated atom.
• Prices are written the way people write them in each language, and the saving shown on the yearly price is worked out from the prices in each currency.
• Billing amounts show the currency code only in cases where the currency symbol, such as $ or kr, is shared by several different currencies.
• If you try to redeem a gift while your account already has lifetime Plutonium, the app shows a message that says "You already have lifetime Plutonium."

Layout and accessibility

• On desktop, you close a dialog with the X in its header, and the extra "Close" button only shows up in dialogs when you're using Fluxer on mobile.
• "Delete account" lists what happens like the report reasons do.
• The date of birth prompt shows over the dimmed app.
• Section headers in Friends and Quick Switcher are in sentence case.
• The vanity URL remove button is a plain red button.
• The passkeys row in account security doesn't show a count.
• The recipient picker shows a message when there's nobody to pick.
• On macOS, keyboard shortcut hints show Shift as ⇧.
• Screen readers say the name of each emoji in the emoji picker, and the skin tone button, each tone, the inbox "Mark as read" buttons and the mute and deafen buttons all have labels that screen readers can say out loud.
• Settings sidebar categories are grouped for screen readers.
• "Skip to content" moves focus to the content, including on the Friends page.
• Keyboard focus stays on sign-in and checkout errors, and screen readers announce each radio option's description and any field errors. When you move through a form with Tab, keyboard focus skips over the show password button.
• The app shows an error when saving a theme fails.
• In settings, notices show under the page header.

Fixed

Messages and threads

• Fixed the name the app suggests for a new thread showing any mentions, channels and emoji in it as raw IDs. Reported by Fullest in #4162.
• Fixed the app freezing when you edited a message while you were still in the middle of starting a thread from it. Reported by Fullest in #4161.
• Fixed threads only showing up in the forward window when you searched for them, and not in the list before you searched. Reported by Fullest in #4198.
• Fixed the "Threads" button not showing in the channel header while you had a thread open in full view. Reported by Radiant Xyz in #4267.
• Fixed the member list in a thread not putting people under their roles and not showing them in their role colors. Reported by bizo in #3779.
• Fixed hidden forum channels not having a lock icon next to their name when they showed up in your channel list. Reported by _ in #3909.
• Fixed being able to use the keyboard shortcuts to start editing a message that someone other than you had sent. Reported by lonter in #4224.
• Fixed hovering over a labeled link not showing you where the link goes when it pointed somewhere inside Fluxer, such as to an invite, or when the link was shown in the title of an embed. Reported by Fullest in #3705 and #4277.
• Fixed sensitive media showing up blurred when your settings say to block it.
• Fixed being able to report the system account. Reported by Phara in #3997.

Accounts and sign-in

• Fixed switching accounts resetting favorites and other synced settings.
• Fixed messages and member lists from the account you left staying stuck on the screen after you had switched over to another account.
• Fixed switching accounts leaving a password or GIF import dialog open.
• Fixed a voice call that failed to connect staying after you switched accounts.
• Fixed the Back and Forward buttons, including the ones on your mouse, opening pages from your other account after you switched accounts.
• Fixed the new audio device prompt covering the add-account step.
• Fixed an account you added on another instance opening the channel you had open on the previous account instead of a channel of its own.
• Fixed passkey sign-in failing when you tried again, such as when your security key wasn't plugged in the first time. Reported by Xeon in #3816.
• Fixed two sign-in steps overlapping while the card switched between them.
• Fixed the invite details touching the sign-in buttons on invite pages.
• Fixed username checks and suggestions at sign-up sometimes showing results for something you had already changed in the username field.

Voice and video

• Fixed "Mirror camera" flipping the video other people see. It only flips your own view of your camera, and others always see it the right way around.
• Fixed your microphone not sending any audio after you were moved to a different voice channel while your microphone was still starting up.
• Fixed the buttons in the corners of a call going under a crowded control bar.
• Fixed "Open chat" not showing in a voice channel's menu when joining voice channels needs a double-click. Reported by Fullest in #4108.

Themes and Plutonium

• Fixed losing unsaved CSS when you changed a theme's name or details.
• Fixed linked theme files falling out of sync with your theme library.
• Fixed Plutonium settings showing the date your gift ends as your renewal date when you had a gift queued to start after your subscription.
• Fixed the gift dialog staying open after you claimed a gift on a second try.
• Fixed the columns in billing history not lining up with their headings.
• Fixed receipt buttons in billing history blending into the table in light theme.
• Fixed the plan names in the Plutonium comparison table being off center.

Layout and settings

• Fixed notices popping up in the main window when you did something in a popped-out window, such as the window for the Quick CSS editor.
• Fixed cut-off Friends tabs and a hidden "Add friend" in a narrow window.
• Fixed the settings search showing a "Media" section under chat settings that doesn't exist there. Reported by Dinosaur Gnatalie in #3747.
• Fixed a color field still showing an error after you typed a valid color.
• Fixed dragging a community in the list adding an empty slot at the bottom.
• Fixed a loading placeholder for a community staying in the channel list and never going away when the app can't find that community at all.
• Fixed the add reaction button not growing with app zoom.
• Fixed extra space under the text in confirmation dialogs.

Desktop app

On Linux, our own Flatpak has every change here, and Flathub gets some later.

New

• The desktop app keeps every signed-in account connected in the background, and there's no limit on the number of accounts or instances.
• Every account in the desktop app can send notifications, and each one says which account and instance it's for. Clicking one switches to that account and opens the message, and the app badge counts mentions from all of your accounts.
• Switching between accounts in the desktop app takes about a tenth of a second, and the app picks up right where you left off in that account.
• Quick Switcher lists channels with activity in your other accounts, and the inbox has an "Other accounts" section with their mentions that you can mark as read.
• You can switch between accounts in the desktop app from the tray menu, from the dock menu on macOS and from the jump list on Windows.
• One keyboard shortcut opens the account switcher, and other keyboard shortcuts take you to the next, previous or last account, to a numbered account, to your newest mention or to a search of all of your other accounts.
• With streamer mode on, the tray and dock menus show "Account 1", "Account 2" and so on, and they don't show any names, hosts or counts.
• All your accounts can share one theme in the desktop app, and each account can still keep its own. App zoom is the same for every account.

Improved

• Unread counts for your other accounts follow that account's unread badge settings, and their channels count again when a timed mute ends.
• Your other accounts don't send you notifications for messages that are older than 2 minutes, such as the ones they catch up on after reconnecting, and a burst of messages from one of them sends you at most 5 notifications.
• Notifications from your other accounts for messages in age-restricted or content-warned channels only say "This message may contain sensitive content."
• Picking an expired account opens sign-in again.
• The window title and the title bar both use the name of the instance you used last time, and they show that name from the moment you open the app.
• When you add an instance by an alias domain, or one whose API is on another host, the desktop app follows its discovery document to the instance it declares. The app can still start offline with that instance. Suggested by timjrobinson in #641.
• On Linux, hardware video decoding with VA-API also works on NVIDIA graphics cards when you have nvidia-vaapi-driver installed, and the app waits for each decoded frame to be ready before it shows that frame on screen.
• Linux software centers show current screenshots of the desktop app.

Fixed

• Fixed the top of a zoomed-in image going under the title bar.
• Fixed app zoom changing the size of the title bar wordmark.
• Fixed a smaller loading screen showing briefly before your zoom applied.
• Fixed popped-out window titles going under the window buttons on macOS.
• Fixed the desktop app sometimes failing to save its data at startup.
• Fixed the desktop app holding back push notifications to your phone while open on systems that always report zero idle time, like some Linux Wayland setups.
• Fixed the desktop app failing to connect to self-hosted instances on HTTP.
• Fixed clicking a notification on Linux doing nothing.
• Fixed the monochrome tray icon on Linux looking bigger than other icons.
• Fixed the Linux tray icon becoming a blob in trays with a 256-pixel icon limit.
• Fixed the Linux desktop app replacing a .desktop entry you edited by hand.
• Fixed screen sharing with audio on Linux starting a PipeWire thread every couple of seconds until the app slowed down or failed. Reported by g00by in #4160.

iOS and Android

These changes are in betas 9, 10 and 11 of the mobile apps.

New

• In calls, you can watch a screen share or someone's camera in full screen.
• Code blocks marked as ansi show ANSI text colors, and blinking text blinks.
• "Duplicate channel" in a channel's menu asks you for a name and then copies the channel's category and its permissions, like it does on web.
• "What's new" in settings opens the latest patch notes.
• On foldables and tablets, you can drag the channel list's edge to resize it.
• The message list and the channel list each have a scrollbar that you can grab and drag to scroll through them. Reported by Jackuczys in #4247.
• When your device can't translate a message on its own, "Translate" opens the message in a web translator that you've turned on in your settings.
• If the app seems to have crashed, the next time you open the app it asks you once whether you want to send crash reports. Crash reports stay turned off unless you agree, and you can turn them on later in "Advanced" settings.
• Notification settings show how notifications get to your device, including the push provider and whether the Fluxer Push relay is in use. On Android builds with UnifiedPush, you can see and change the distributor there.
• Links to audio files in a supported format show an audio player in the embed that you can use to play them. Reported by 4narch in #4131.

Improved

• Discovery is called Explore everywhere in the app.
• A channel's welcome says "This is the start of #channel-name", like on web.
• If you gave Fluxer access to only some of your photos, the attachment picker says so and has a "Manage" button for choosing which ones.
• The long-press menu for a community or folder in the sidebar is smaller.
• Claiming a gift is faster.
• Gift links work on instances whose address includes a port.
• Long error messages under text fields wrap onto more lines.
• Pickers with a search field move up above the keyboard.
• Tapping anywhere on the speech playback speed field opens its picker.
• Dropdowns on phones are at least 44 points tall.

Fixed

Messages and channels

• Fixed messages that were deleted while the app was closed still showing when you opened the app again. Reported by I'm an issue in #4144.
• Fixed new messages sometimes disappearing while older ones loaded.
• Fixed emoji in messages showing in your system's emoji style when you opened a channel before the app had finished loading its own emoji.
• Fixed the emoji button showing in the message box even in places where you aren't able to send any messages. Reported by C.Ezra.M in #4240.
• Fixed the reaction panel taking a while to show when you long-pressed a message right after opening the app. Reported by Zabinski in #2239.
• Fixed the button that turns mentions on or off when you reply to someone's message not showing in threads. Reported by hihi217 in #4125.
• Fixed the app saying "Channel access denied" when you tried to open a closed thread from a message link. Reported by Fullest in #3957.
• Fixed channels you had added to your favorites not opening after they were moved over to another community. Reported by Fullest in #4087.
• Fixed the list of channels staying blank whenever you opened the app and it then took you directly into a channel. Reported by Hebb in #4114.
• Fixed the app sometimes not loading a community's channels or your permissions there when the app reopened the channel you were last in.
• Fixed search not finding personal notes on tablets and other large screens.
• Fixed the attachment picker showing overlapping elements before you had given Fluxer access to your photos. Reported by Fullest in #4206.

Unreads and notifications

• Fixed channels that have unread messages in muted communities not being highlighted in the channel list. Reported by Lava in #4123.
• Fixed a mention in a thread not showing up on the thread itself when you had muted either the community or the channel that the thread is in.
• Fixed direct messages you had closed and channels the app hadn't loaded yet losing track of the spot where you had stopped reading.
• Fixed notifications playing a sound after you turned off message sounds.
• Fixed some app sounds playing while your phone was on silent.

Calls

• Fixed incoming calls on iOS not ringing while the app was in the background.
• Fixed hanging up a direct message call leaving the call screen stuck.
• Fixed the input volume slider in your audio settings not moving when you tried to drag it on some devices. Reported by Floogle in #3885.

Sidebar, settings and sign-in

• Fixed not being able to drop a community below an open folder at the bottom of the sidebar, or right before a folder. Reported by Fullest in #4100.
• Fixed the sidebar showing that a community you were dragging would go into a folder when it wouldn't actually end up inside that folder.
• Fixed settings and folders that sync between your devices sometimes not updating on this device after you changed them on another device.
• Fixed the "Profile type" picker opening the keyboard on its own when you tapped it to choose your profile type. Reported by Law in #4088.
• Fixed glide typing on your keyboard not working in some of the text fields on Android, such as the search boxes. Reported by Attempts in #4165.
• Fixed iOS asking for permission every time you pasted.
• Fixed not being able to sign in on Android 7.0.
• Fixed the names of the app icons using the spelling "Greyscale" when your app language was set to US English. Reported by Wyatt in #4225.

Self-hosting

These changes are for instance admins, and you get them by upgrading your instance. Near the bottom of this post, you can see how to upgrade with rexctl.

New

rexctl

• rexctl is a new command that installs and runs a self-hosted instance and replaces install.sh and install.ps1. It works with Docker or with Podman 5.4 or newer and doesn't need Docker Compose. The self-hosting post has the setup steps.
• rexctl install lets you create the first admin account in the terminal or in your browser with a setup token, and rexctl setup token shows it again.
• rexctl install asks where uploads go, in the bundled object store or your own S3-compatible store, and rexctl checks the store before it finishes.
• rexctl upgrade upgrades rexctl and Fluxer together. Fluxer keeps running while the new version is downloading and then stops for about 2 minutes. rexctl backs up the instance first, and if the new version doesn't start, rexctl goes back to the version that you had before. Reported by shanie in #4152.
• rexctl upgrade --check shows whether an upgrade is out, and --prefetch downloads the upgrade so that you can install it at a later time.
• rexctl rollback goes back to your previous version, and with --restore-database it also restores the backup from before the upgrade.
• rexctl backup saves your settings, database and uploads in one file, and rexctl restore brings the instance back from one, including on a new machine. rexctl backup list and rexctl backup verify list and check your backups.
• You can use rexctl eject to hand an instance over to plain Docker Compose, and you can use rexctl takeover to hand the instance back to rexctl.
• rexctl config lists, gets and sets every setting with a line of help for each, and you don't edit .env or the Compose files by hand. It says which settings restart Fluxer and puts the old value back if Fluxer doesn't start after a change.
• rexctl doctor checks the machine and the instance, from memory, disk and DNS to TLS, voice ports, each service, Postgres and backups, and tells you how to fix anything it finds. With --fix, it fixes what it safely can by itself.
• rexctl status and rexctl logs show each service's state and logs.
• rexctl users lists, creates, bans, unbans and deletes accounts, signs them out, turns off two-factor authentication and creates password reset links.
• rexctl admins, rexctl invites and rexctl registration manage admins, invite links and who can sign up, including pending sign-ups.
• You can use rexctl email to set up how the instance sends email, and use rexctl branding to set up the instance's name, color, logo and icon.
• Every time it starts Fluxer, rexctl sizes memory limits, database connections and threads to the machine's memory and CPUs, and you don't need to change any settings yourself when you run Fluxer on a bigger machine.
• On low-memory machines, rexctl config set FLUXER_API_EMBEDDED_WORKER true runs background jobs inside the api service, with no separate worker.
• On Linux with systemd, rexctl starts Fluxer when the machine boots.
• rexctl proxy on runs an instance behind your own reverse proxy.
• rexctl uninstall --keep-data removes an instance and keeps its data.
• IPv6 is a setting you can turn on. Reported by Yamada993 in #825.

Sign-in and sign-up

• On instances that sign in with email and send email, sign-in starts with your email address. Accounts with a password go to the password step, accounts without one get a code by email, and new people can sign up with an emailed code without picking a password first. Fluxer.app doesn't use this way of signing in.
• A "Sign-in & new accounts" section in the admin panel lets admins allow instant accounts, where people join a community from an invite with only a display name. Instant accounts are turned off by default on new instances.
• In "Sign-in & new accounts", admins choose whether to ask for a date of birth and set when abandoned and inactive accounts are cleaned up.
• On new instances, only accounts with a confirmed email address, or with a password on username instances, can send messages, react and join voice. Instances that were already running before this update keep the old rules.
• Instance admins can limit public sign-ups to chosen email domains with "Allowed Email Domains". Registration links still work for other addresses.
• Sign-up settings have their own page in the admin panel. On that page, admins can rename and remove registration links, and they can also attach an invite to a registration link. Suggested by Yamada993 in #1374 and #1375.
• New accounts can join every community in the auto-join invite list.
• People who approve sign-ups get a direct message when sign-ups are waiting, at most once every 10 minutes, or an email with a "Review pending registrations" button when direct messages are off. Approved people get an email saying they can sign in. Suggested by snow and IamLurking in #4008 and #648.
• Single sign-on can create accounts while registration is closed, and it takes new usernames from the provider's preferred username. Reported by frenzeldk in #654 and suggested by jb and InsertDisc in #1227 and #1238.
• Single sign-on starts on its own on instances that require it, and /login?sso=1 works as a link from your identity provider. Suggested by Mid in #1265.
• Admins can set the text on the single sign-on button.
• Single sign-on can map groups from your identity provider to roles in the single community, and the roles are synced at every sign-in. In single-community mode, existing accounts join the community and get their mapped roles the next time they sign in to the instance. Suggested by DragonHunter274 in #1222.

Branding and admin panel

• Self-hosted instances can show their own name, logo and a backdrop on the sign-in page for people who are signing in. Suggested by Mid in #1292.
• The setup wizard and admin panel let you set a separate favicon that shows in browsers with a dark theme. Suggested by penguin in #1458.
• Instance admins can add custom CSS for the whole instance in the admin panel, and it loads before each person's own theme and custom CSS.
• Links, mentions and info colors follow the instance theme color.
• Link previews of the instance show its name and image.
• Instance admins can post a notice in the admin panel that shows as a banner in the app, with an optional link and start and end times. A new notice appears for people who have the app open at the time. Suggested by nostelux in #1280.
• Instance admins can set an upload limit message that shows when someone picks a file over their upload limit, and the message can contain links.
• Instances can turn friends off separately from direct messages. With direct messages off and friends on, the home button opens your friends list, and with both off, it opens your personal notes. Suggested by Aku in #4023.
• When direct messages or friends are turned off, settings, menus and profile actions that would do nothing are hidden. When direct messages are turned off, report results and enforcement notices go out to people by email.
• Instance admins can delete an account right away, and the account is gone from the instance at once. Suggested by penguin in #1235 and #703.
• Instance admins can create password reset links for accounts on instances that don't send any email. Reported by KrowLionHeart in #725.
• Admins can issue lifetime gift codes, and these codes can also be redeemed on accounts without an email address. Suggested by Zoey in #3819.
• Single-community mode can be turned on later on an instance with an existing community, and every existing account is added to that community.
• Admins can add internal notes to a report on its page in the admin panel. Only staff see them, they can't be edited and they're deleted with the report.
• Instances can send email for chosen recipient domains, or all email, through a second SMTP provider with the FLUXER_EMAIL_FALLBACK_* settings.
• Instances can run without search with FLUXER_SEARCH_ENGINE=none. If search isn't ready at startup, the API keeps retrying setup in the background.

Improved

Resources and setup

• When a self-hosted instance is idle, it uses about a quarter less memory and half as much CPU as the same instance did before this update.
• Under load, an instance uses about a third less CPU and its database writes about half as much to disk. The same machine can have more people online at the same time, and people get back in faster after the instance restarts.
• Together, the self-hosting images are about 1.7 GB smaller than before, and the API image on its own is about a third of the size it used to be.
• Each Rust service runs as one container, and a self-hosted instance runs 21 containers in total where it used to need 26 containers.
• Container logs are capped at three 10 MB files per service.
• On machines with less than 7 GB of memory, rexctl turns off HTTP/3 and the edge serves HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2. You can set this yourself with the FLUXER_EDGE_PROTOCOLS setting in Compose and Helm.
• The docs list what a small instance needs. It's a 64-bit Linux, macOS or Windows machine with at least 2 CPU cores, 4 GB of memory and 20 GB of free disk space, and that's enough for about 1,000 people online at once.
• The self-hosting docs are rewritten around rexctl and have a full command reference, and all of the old pages redirect to the new ones.
• The docs explain Kubernetes stateful sets and duplicate releases, single sign-on, Cloudflare settings, the gateway URL, Cassandra and Scylla setup and trusted proxies. They also tell you that uploads over 500 MiB need you to raise the upload relay limit as well. Reported by astromahdi and fltx in #4118 and #4070 and suggested by astromahdi and Jonas in #4147 and #3922.
• The setup wizard asks one question per screen, keeps your progress if you reload the page and shows a live preview of the sign-in page while you set up your branding. It also tells you that you can change the single community and direct message choices later and that only how people sign in is fixed.
• Instances on Cassandra or Scylla add any missing tables, columns and indexes on their own when they start, and a missing keyspace or a failed schema change logs what to do. Keyspace names with capital letters also work.
• If the Postgres password doesn't match the one in your .env file, you get an error message that points you to the rexctl doctor command.

Branding and the app

• Before the app has started, the loading screen you see already uses the instance's own colors and the custom CSS that the instance has set.
• Branding changes from the admin panel show up in the app within about 5 seconds, and logos, the wordmark, the favicon and the backdrop load at full size.
• On self-hosted instances, the app leaves Visionary out of the lifetime gift options, and the onboarding banner doesn't mention Visionary either.
• Self-hosted instances only link to terms and privacy pages they have set.
• On self-hosted instances, invite pages don't offer the desktop app.
• On self-hosted instances, push notifications without a title use the instance name, and default avatars are plain when the instance has its own icon.
• When you're using a self-hosted instance, clicking on a link to fluxer.app opens that link in your own web browser. Reported by Dkzver in #808.
• On self-hosted instances, the Explore button is hidden from the app when the instance has turned discovery off. Reported by dunny in #4113.
• The system account uses the instance name in system direct messages and on its messages, and changing it needs no restart. Reported by coolty in #729.
• The email sender name follows the instance name unless you set your own.
• The captcha says it needs HTTPS or localhost on a plain HTTP instance.
• Passkeys work on single-label hosts such as localhost.

Admin panel and sign-in

• The admin panel lists every user along with total counts, and it also shows the account level of every user. Suggested by Mid in #1291.
• The admin panel follows your system's dark mode setting, and it shows the instance's name and favicon. Suggested by honeywellz in #1388.
• Email relays that don't need a username or password work, and secure email on port 587 uses STARTTLS for the connection. Reported by lazynooblet and adavi1995 in #829 and #642 and suggested by FonduemangVI in #1274.
• The admin panel won't turn on email without an SMTP host.
• "Send Password Reset" is hidden when the instance doesn't send email.
• Avatar and banner uploads follow the size limits of the account's traits.
• The premium trait is an admin panel checkbox that stays set when you save.
• Trait names in limit rules ignore case.
• The admin panel won't save a Bluesky private key that isn't a whole PEM key, and Connections doesn't mention Bluesky when it's turned off.
• Single sign-on errors say what to do, including when the provider's email isn't verified or your identity is already linked to another account.
• On username instances, single sign-on works without an email address, and the desktop app then continues on to your identity provider.
• Saving single sign-on settings takes effect at once.

Fixed

• Fixed incoming calls not ringing phones on self-hosted instances.
• Fixed personal notes not opening and the home sidebar staying empty when you were on an instance that had turned off direct messages.
• Fixed the Plutonium page being squeezed into a narrow column when direct messages and friends were off. Reported by Jonah in #3867.
• Fixed turning off the captcha also silently turning off instant accounts.
• Fixed a deleted account staying on the list of sign-ups waiting for approval.
• Fixed approval notices listing only one account when more were waiting.
• Fixed single sign-on in the desktop app never finishing after browser sign-in.
• Fixed single sign-on ignoring the page it should open after sign-in.
• Fixed accounts that sign in with single sign-on and have no password being asked for one before resetting a bot token. Reported by Mid in #696.
• Fixed turning email off and on resetting your port to 587 in the admin panel.
• Fixed the admin panel showing the "SMTP password missing" warning for an email relay that doesn't need any username or password at all.
• Fixed the admin panel keeping old instance settings for a minute on save.
• Fixed SMTP test and registration link errors leaving out the reason.
• Fixed admin archive downloads not opening. Reported by snow in #585.
• Fixed the worker service failing to start after you upgraded your self-hosted instance to a newer version. Reported by MrRubberDucky in #836.
• Fixed the update indicator not showing up on self-hosted instances when a new version of Fluxer was available. Reported by 山田エルフ in #3793.
• Fixed the voice lists in the app not following the connection ID setting that an instance has set in its configuration. Suggested by Kulza in #4121.
• Fixed Cloudflare Rocket Loader breaking the web app.
• Fixed the web app being blocked from loading the status page that an instance admin has set for the instance. Reported by heinkz in #4104.
• Fixed the web app showing "Could not load this page" on an instance's alias domain or when its API, gateway or media are on another domain. When FLUXER_APP_PROXY_SAME_ORIGIN_HOSTS is set, addresses on the API's host follow whichever domain the web app is open on at that moment.
• Fixed the web app failing to load on self-hosted instances that have set up a static CDN which pulls the web app's files from the instance itself.
• Fixed limit rules in "Limit Config" failing to save when one of the rules still had a limit in it that Fluxer has since removed from the list of limits.
• Fixed file uploads failing once SeaweedFS had run out of volumes, both on instances set up with Compose and on instances set up with Helm.
• Fixed the Helm chart not working when you ran it from a checkout of the repository that was made on Windows. Reported by astromahdi in #4117.
• Fixed recent mentions and saved messages on Postgres instances not loading with the newest ones first as you scrolled back through them.

For bot developers

New

• Instance admins can remove, ban and unban members in any community through the Admin API without being a member. Unbanning uses the new DELETE /v1/admin/guilds/{guild_id}/bans/{user_id} route, the community's audit log shows the system account and the admin audit log says which admin did it.
• The Admin API lists the notes that have been added to a report, and you can get all of those notes at GET /v1/admin/reports/{report_id}/notes.
• Admins can look up, move and unlink the single sign-on identities linked to people's accounts through the Admin API. Suggested by Kai in #4194.
• Full user profiles have a profile_badges array with each badge's kind, label, image and optional count, in the order clients should show them.
• The user object can have the fields account_tier, verification_need and date_of_birth_required. On instances that require it, an action that an account can't take yet returns 403 ACCOUNT_VERIFICATION_REQUIRED, and the response includes the action, the account's tier and what the account still needs.
• New routes handle email sign-in codes, claiming an account, setting a date of birth and confirming an email with a code, such as POST /v1/auth/identify, POST /v1/users/@me/claim and PUT /v1/users/@me/date-of-birth.

Improved

• When a Gateway node shuts down, it asks connected clients and bots to reconnect first, and they can then resume their sessions on another node.

Fixed

• Fixed enabling TOTP two-factor when it was already on returning TWO_FA_NOT_ENABLED. It returns TWO_FA_ALREADY_ENABLED.

Website

New

• The fluxer.app/patch-notes address and the "Patch notes" link in the footer of the website always open the most recent patch notes post.
• The Operator Pass page lets you join the waitlist and get an email when sales open on November 1, 2026, and tell us what fits you and what you think of the early bird price. The self-hosting post explains how the pass works.
• The home page has an Operators' wall.
• The terms and the privacy notice for the Operator Pass are published on the website, and the terms take effect when sales of the pass open.
• The website has a new retro 3D look and a footer in four columns.
• Every page has a compact language picker with search. Switching language keeps the rest of the address, and dates use each language's format.
• The donate page has two columns, for Plutonium and the Operator Pass.
• There's a banner at the very top of the website, and it says that Fluxer.app has passed the mark of half a million users who have registered.
• The help center has an article on doing a clean reinstall of the desktop app.
• Listing a community in Explore, becoming a partnered community and getting a community verified each have their own help center article.
• Fluxer Feedback has its own privacy notice.

Improved

• The footer link to Fluxer Feedback says "Submit feedback".
• Blog posts keep their title, description, dates and related posts in English, the language they're written in, while the menus follow your language.
• Text across the whole website wraps more evenly from one line to the next, and numbers stay on the same line as the units that go with them.
• Dark mode on the website has a black background.
• The phone art shows the current mobile app, and the Plutonium and self-hosting pages show an animated atom when your device allows motion.
• Voice regions are sorted alphabetically in each language.
• The terms say that consumers in the EU and EEA can withdraw from a Plutonium purchase, gifts included, and get a full refund, even after Plutonium has started. The withdrawal period ends at the end of the 14th day after the payment. The terms also say you keep your subscription price while it renews without a break.
• The terms say that we always tell you when we remove something because of a copyright claim, and that you can appeal the decision we made.
• The privacy policy describes every way to create an account and the crash and performance reports from the mobile apps, which are off by default. It also says what others in a peer-to-peer call can see, including your IP address.
• The community guidelines on the website say in which cases we report terrorist content to law enforcement agencies, and when we don't.
• The company page says how you can take a complaint you have about the Operator Pass to the Swedish National Board for Consumer Disputes.

Fixed

• Fixed the website briefly showing content without any styling, such as a huge flag, when its stylesheet took a while to load in your browser.
• Fixed older browsers failing on the home page and the Operator Pass page.
• Fixed the scroll position jumping when you reloaded a page on the website.
• Fixed selected text in the website footer being hard to see.

Fluxer Feedback site

New

• You can search by pull request or report number, such as "pr 1129", "fluxer#123" or a pull request link, and reviewers can link pull requests to posts.
• Moderators can pin comments to the top of a post.
• Pinned posts get their own section at the top of the first page.
• Audio attachments play in the post.
• Staff can start discussions, which are free-form posts that show up in the list of posts under Features and have a "Discussion" label on them.

Improved

• Pages load faster when you're signed out.

Fixed

• Fixed moderators getting the error "Only staff can set this status" when they tried to move a post from bugs to features or the other way around.

Getting the latest version

How Fluxer updates depends on how you installed it. If something in these notes isn't showing up for you, look for the way you installed it in the sections below.

Web

The web app at web.fluxer.app checks for a new version every 5 minutes and when you return to the tab. When one is out, click the reload icon in the channel header.

Desktop

The desktop app has two parts, the app itself and the Fluxer interface inside it. Official installs of version 2026.1012 or newer get interface updates, and that's how most of the changes in these notes get to you. When one is ready, an update icon shows in the channel header and the tray menu has "Update Fluxer now". To check for one yourself, click "Check for updates" in the tray menu, or in the Fluxer menu on macOS.

Versions before 2026.1012 keep an older interface until the app itself updates.

How the app itself updates depends on how you installed it.

• The Windows installer and the macOS app update themselves.
• The Windows portable version doesn't update itself. When a new version comes out, the app asks you to download it from our download page.
• The Linux AppImage updates itself when it's in a folder you can write to.
• If you use our apt, dnf or pacman repository or our Flatpak, updates come through your package manager or software center like any other app.
• If you downloaded a .deb or .rpm file by itself, it doesn't get updates. Add our repository from the Linux downloads to keep it up to date.
• The tar.gz download doesn't update itself.

If the app on Linux won't pick up an update, click "Restart Fluxer" in the tray menu. A full restart of the app sometimes works when just reloading the window doesn't.

Canary is its own app with its own updates. Get it from the Canary downloads.

Flathub

We make the Flathub version of Fluxer, and it updates through your software center. Flathub doesn't have every change in these notes yet. To get them all, install our own Flatpak from pkgs.fluxer.com, which uses the same app ID.

Packages made by others

Some people package Fluxer for other stores and package managers. We don't run these packages, and the list below says which ones are out of date.

• The fluxer-bin and fluxer-canary-bin packages on the AUR, the Homebrew cask and the winget package all install our own builds and are up to date. On Arch you can also use our pacman repository from the Linux downloads.
• The fluxer-git package on the AUR hasn't been updated since June. Please use our own pacman repository or the fluxer-bin package.
• The fluxer package in the ForkPrince Scoop bucket installs our portable build and is up to date. It updates when you run scoop update fluxer.
• The fluxer package in the chrishenn Scoop bucket installs Canary.
• The "Fluxer (Unofficial)" Snap hasn't been updated since March. Remove it with sudo snap remove fluxer-tsugu, install one of ours and sign in again.
• Fedora's Terra repository has a fluxer package from August built from Canary code. To switch, tell dnf to skip it, add our repository and upgrade.

sudo dnf config-manager setopt terra.excludepkgs='fluxer*'
sudo curl -fsSL -o /etc/yum.repos.d/fluxer.repo https://pkgs.fluxer.com/rpm/fluxer.repo
sudo dnf upgrade --refresh fluxer

• The fluxer-canary-bin package in Gentoo's GURU repository is a Canary build from late September. Use our Flatpak, AppImage or tar.gz.
• Fluxer isn't in nixpkgs, and the flakes that people in the community maintain vary in how current they are. Our Flatpak or AppImage works on NixOS.
• Unofficial mobile builds don't get our updates. Use the official apps below.

iOS and Android

The mobile apps are in public beta, and the newest version on GitHub is 2026.10.100 beta 11. TestFlight and Google Play sometimes get new betas after GitHub.

• On iOS, join the beta through TestFlight. To get updates, turn on automatic updates in TestFlight, or open TestFlight and tap "Update" next to Fluxer.
• On Android, the Google Play beta updates like any other app.
• The Obtainium links on the Android download page install GitHub builds and keep them updated. Pick the first if your phone has Google Play services.
• An APK file you downloaded yourself doesn't update on its own. Get the new one from the Android download page, or switch to Google Play or Obtainium.
• Google Play and GitHub builds are signed differently, and you can't install one over the other. To switch, uninstall, install the other build and sign in again.

Self-hosted instances

Instance admins upgrade with rexctl upgrade, which upgrades rexctl and Fluxer together. On an instance you set up with the earlier installer script, run rexctl upgrade in its folder, and rexctl takes it over with all your data and settings.

What's next

We'll be back with new patch notes next Friday, October 30. In the meantime, our roadmap shows what we're working on and what we plan to build after that.

Roadmap 2026

Where Fluxer is headed in 2026 and what we're working on next.

Fluxer blogHampus Kraft

You can donate as a person or a business to support this work, and donations pay for hosting and development. On Fluxer.app, subscribing to Plutonium helps too.

Thank you

Thank you to dearfenane, Jiralite, Taarek and yofukashino for their code.